Hollywood Bowl 2024, a Satisfying Mozart and Beethoven week
/By Truman C. Wang
7/27/2024
Pinkas zukerman, zubin mehta
My first Hollywood Bowl concert of summer 2024 was a most amiable all-Mozart program (Tuesday, July 23), conducted by 88-year-old maestro Zubin Mehta. The occasion marked Mehta’s return to the Bowl after a 31-year hiatus. Despite his mobility handicap, once on the podium, Mehta directed an energetic, sprightly reading of the opening work, Overture to the opera Abduction from the Seraglio, full of effervescent playing from the strings and percussion and, in Belmonte’s aria, suave exchange between the strings and winds.
Pinkas Zukerman, an old colleague of Mehta’s, played the Violin Concerto No. 3 (K.216). Mozart wrote the work in Salzburg in 1775 after returning (reluctantly!) from his three trips to Italy, and it shows in the gorgeous music full of sunshine and jolly good cheer. Zukerman played it in the style of a fine Italian opera singer (Mozart’s opera Il Re Pastore opened just a few months before the concerto.) – combining a superb singing line with serene lyricism in the first movement, gentle pathos in the andante, and a bravura finish in the final rondo full of swagger and excitement. After a vociferous ovation, Zukerman returned to play ‘a surprise’ for maestro Mehta – Brahms’ Lullaby – but without explaining why.
Post-intermission, Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 received beautifully articulated playing from the L.A. Phil strings and winds. Maestro Mehta conducted with great verve and drive, taking all the repeats in second movement but none in the third. Most memorable was the andante, in a deeply-felt reading, plumbing unfathomable depth of despair, followed by a comforting deep calm.
One thing I noticed this summer at the Bowl was the sound system has been tweaked and improved for classical music. Gone are the crude amplification and ‘spotlighting’ of instruments, particularly the winds and brass. The sound now appears smoother, more balanced and homogeneous across all orchestral sections.
The all-Mozart program was followed two days later by an all-Beethoven program, on Thursday July 25. “Amiable” might not be a good adjective for this concert, but “high-octane” is.
California-native David Robertson conducted. He’s tall, lanky, intense, and holds a masterly grip on the Classics. The Coriolan Overture, based on Shakespeare’s rebellious Roman hero, got a taut, muscular reading from the players, foreshadowing the Fifth Symphony to come, in the same key of C-minor. (It’s always exciting to watch the L.A. Phil’s dynamic Principal Viola Teng Li in action!) There was tremendous frisson in the tutti, and affecting tenderness in the winds and solo cello in the quiet closing measures.
The Triple Concerto is probably my least favorite Beethoven work. I find the music pleasant but the narrative overlong and rambling. Therefore, I was shocked to find myself actually liking it for the first time, as performed by the dynamic trio of Koreans, who attacked the piece with fierce urgency in admirable teamwork. Sunwook Kim’s piano playing was emphatic and brilliant, Clara-Jumi Kang’s violin bold and radiant, Hayoung Choi’s cello (winner of the 2022 Queen Elisabeth Competition for Cello) firm and biting. While other performers wallow in the lyricism and surface glitter, these young Koreans delivered the lyricism with bristling and blistering brio. The slow movement was dreamy and lyrical like a whiff of fragrant summer freeze, with whispering orchestral accompaniment adding to the enjoyment. The final rondo showcased the trio in passages of great bravura and a rousing fandango dance.
Conductor Robertson gave the orchestra (and the retuned sound system) a thorough, vigorous workout in the Beethoven’s Fifth, all four movements played without pause. There remained some spotlighting of horns in the first movement, but the string sections were beautifully balanced as passages near the coda were passed around in rapid succession from low to high strings and back to low again. Second movement featured some lovely wind playing, third movement scherzo was normal, meaning no repeats, leading swiftly to the towering magnificence of the C-major finale. The concert overall was taut, exciting, and high-octane.
Another change at the Bowl this summer, besides the sound system, is the removal of parking lot B. All the more reason to take the $7 Park-and-Ride shuttle and avoid the parking hell.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.