REVIEW: JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET AND L.A. PHILHARMONIC AT HOLLYWOOD BOWL
By Josef Woodard, Special to The Times

Los Angeles Times
Aug 22 2008

Khachaturian, long considered a lighter-weight participant among 20th
century composers, may be ripe for reconsideration.

Although Thursday night’s Hollywood Bowl performance by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic had a mostly Russian feeling, its program was
more complicated than that.

Sure, the pioneering Glinka and the reliable crowd-pleaser Tchaikovsky
run down the middle of Russian musical culture, and the Hungarian
Zoltan Kodaly qualifies as compatible kin from the former Eastern Bloc.

But Aram Khachaturian, whose Piano Concerto was the concert’s
centerpiece, was both Moscow-trained and proudly from and of
Armenia. And it was Khachaturian — who worked in the shadows of
Glinka, Armenian traditional music and, to a lesser extent, Stravinsky
— who dominated the concert.

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Indeed, Khachaturian, long considered a
lighter-weight participant among 20th century composers, may be ripe
for reconsideration, or at least that was a notion strengthened by
Thursday’s controlled and passion-powered reading of the concerto by
pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

A three-movement piece written in 1936, the work is a solid example of
the composer’s personalized mix of blustery sentimentality, folkish
colors and teasing Modernist spice. Thibaudet mastered the score
handily, deftly working the extremes of flashy dynamism and feathery
ruminations, which he somehow projected into the Bowl’s expanse.

Like Khachaturian, Kodaly has sometimes been cast as an also-ran among
20th century masters, overshadowed by fellow Hungarian Bartok. His
"Dances of Galanta," the concert’s closer, suggests a softer-edged
Bartok, its indigenous folk themes intact and plushly padded.

Standard-brand orchestral taste treats, which can sound better
when consumed in the Bowl’s great outdoorsy setting, served as
supportive pillars on the program. Glinka’s "Russlan and Ludmilla"
started things off with all the gleaming, boisterous energy expected
of it. Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet," for its part, retained its
charms and loveliness.

On the podium, Lionel Bringuier, all of 21 and about to begin his
second season as the Phil’s assistant conductor, acquitted himself and
marshaled the ensemble forces beautifully. It appears that this mighty
orchestra — on the verge of Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel’s
tenure at the helm — is in the assured clutches of ultra-talented
twentysomethings.