A Cornucopia of Americana, Played by Austrians

NEW YORK — For someone like me, who had not crossed paths much with Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel since his early appearances in New York more than a decade ago, his three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall over the weekend held considerable fascination. What sort of chemistry might have developed between a once-brash wunderkind, now 37, and one of Old Europe’s most august ensembles?

There was, for one thing, the matter of Leonard Bernstein, the quintessential New York maestro and a sort of Dudamel archetype, born a century ago this year. After ignoring invitations to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic for years because of its deep involvement with the Nazi regime during World War II, Bernstein finally acceded in 1966 and became a favorite of the ensemble in later decades.

It was surely too much to hope that Dudamel, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, would lead the players, twirling their instruments, in a raucous account of “Mambo” from “West Side Story,” as he has often done as an encore with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. But sure enough in the concert Friday, which opened an Americas Tour with the Vienna Philharmonic, there was a Bernstein trifle to start off a rich slate of encores: the Waltz from his Divertimento for Orchestra. (The other encores were by Josef Strauss on Friday and Saturday, and Tchaikovsky on Sunday.)

There was another possible nod to Bernstein in the program itself Sunday afternoon: Charles Ives’ Second Symphony, a somewhat baffling cornucopia of Americana, and a bit of an adventure for the Viennese. Bernstein gave the premiere of the work with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie in 1951, nearly half a century after it was written. It is entirely possible, given the Vienna Philharmonic’s incremental (not to say glacial) and often indirect way of deviating from its norms, that this was intended as a significant tribute to Bernstein.

In any case, the orchestra rewarded Dudamel and a packed house with a bang-up performance of the work. The players seemed to enjoy traipsing through the cluttered attic of Ives’ musical mind and memory as much as Dudamel did. The concluding unresolved dissonant splat of a chord seemed as sensible a way to end the piece as any.

Oddly, the most problematic concert was the first, on Friday evening, with nothing but Brahms, mother’s milk for the Vienna Philharmonic. A little deference from a youngish conductor to this orchestra in such repertory can only be a good thing, but Dudamel seemed altogether too deferential in an inviting first half, offering the “Academic Festival Overture” and the “Haydn” Variations.

He conducted squarely and without much vigor, missing some of the humor in the overture and the warmth in the variations. He fared better in the second half, with Brahms’ First Symphony, as the players nudged his sluggish tempos ahead, and by the finale, he appeared fully involved and taking control. For the rest, Dudamel found an excellent stride. He opened the Saturday evening concert with the Adagio from Mahler’s unfinished 10th Symphony in a big, burly performance, and followed with a specialty of his, if not necessarily the orchestra’s: Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” in a revelatory account.

The Vienna Philharmonic, which consists of members of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, turned the piece into high drama. No one plays dances more infectiously than this band, and the rhythmic pull proved as gratifying in the waltz of the “Ball” scene as it was terrifying in the mad dance of the concluding “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath.” The high strings produced fierce tremolos in the “Meadows” movement, and the percussionists and double basses sketched a harrowing, thundering “March to the Scaffold.”

On Sunday afternoon, Dudamel followed the Ives with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, which the orchestra played to the hilt. Here, especially, many of the ensemble’s fine soloists had opportunities to shine, including, of all things, a bassoonist, Sophie Dartigalongue. And stalwart concertmaster Rainer Honeck — seconded on the first stand of violins by another concertmaster, Albena Danailova — carried through the expert, energetic leadership he had shown throughout the weekend.

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