Initiating its three-concert Barbican residency, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented an innovative programme of music from the Americas. LA-based composer Andrew Norman’s Play, of which we heard the first part (Level 1), delivers Californian exuberance in abundance, though its promise of a more nuanced interplay of instruments was only partially realised.
The Argentinian Alberto Ginastera’s 1961 First Piano Concerto embraces 12-note techniques, hallucinatory meditation and seemingly limitless invention in a sure-footed score that deserves to be heard more often. Sergio Tiempo was a dazzling soloist and the Angelenos under Gustavo Dudamel matched him for rhythmic precision and energy.
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring is perhaps the quintessential American score, though here it’s the prairies and pioneers that are invoked rather than the West Coast surfers and sun-seekers.
To inaugurate the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, John Williams wrote Soundings, aiming to capture its unique qualities, even making it “a partner in the music-making”. There was indeed a shimmering quality in the section The Hall Glistens, though also an irony in hearing such a score in the acoustically challenged Barbican. Perhaps the LAPO could be invited to play the piece again if and when we have a hall worthy of it.
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