Gustavo Dudamel doesn’t just conduct the music, he creates it. Daniil Trifonov doesn’t just play the piano, he owns it. The two super stars joined forces with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Rachmaninoff’s demanding third piano concerto, Op. 30 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. A gold medal winner of the 2011 Arthur Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky international competitions, Trifonov has an expansive command of the keyboard, not withstanding the likes of Yuja Wang, Martha Argerich or the late Vladimir Horowitz who is forever linked to this work. Yet, Trifonov’s interpretation contains more than mere virtuosity or effortless facility. He brought out a subtler side of Rachmaninoff that is not often heard, projecting bittersweet melodies with golden toned intimacy and hushed articulation that seemingly drifted to the highest balcony and across the street to The Broad contemporary art museum. There was also plenty of keyboard wizardry in his playing, particularly the cadenza, which defied gravity for its unrelenting drive, abandon and intricate fingerwork that produced a cyclonic effect.
What made this performance even more special was the symbiotic musical collaboration between Dudamel and Trifonov, which allowed the music’s gushing sentimentality to unfold in a palette of tonal colors, gentle tempo fluctuations and taut rhythmic snap, notable in the Finale’s soaring passagework. The bearded Trifonov responded to near pandemonium cheering from the audience with more Rachmaninoff, in the composer’s piquant transcription of Bach’s Gavotte from Partita No. 3 for solo violin.
After intermission, Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite,” Op. 20, an earlier, lesser know work, became a study in contrasts between shimmering metallic sonorities and percussive rhythmic clashes, perhaps inspired by Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” – but certainly not as captivating. The unity between sections was wonderful realized, particularly in the interplay of winds, brass (played by principals) and atmospheric support from celesta and piano. Dudamel breathed life into Scriabin’s “Poem of Ecstasy,” Op. 54, not only with expressive hand gestures that seemed to pull notes out of thin air – but a concept that brought architectural purpose to the work’s meandering style, creamy melodies, some suggestive of the composer’s 4th piano sonata, and surround sound resonance. It was the kind of aesthetic experience one might expect when listening to the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel.