Star violinist Joshua Bell has been touring lately with a concoction that is new, interesting, highly ambitious, and (on paper) a gamble. He commissioned a six-movement violin concerto from five different composers — always a risk if you buy the old joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee.
Bell calls this composite work The Elements — not the periodic-table version but the old definition of earth, fire, water, and air. The concerto has gotten a lot of play already; the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Seattle Symphony have hosted The Elements, and on Thursday night, Aug. 15, it was the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s turn at the Hollywood Bowl.
The good news is that the project works. It’s a roughly 40-minute concerto in which composers of compatible temperaments from different generations have achieved a sense of unity, with frequent passages of beauty and atmosphere. Naturally, the work gives Bell many opportunities to show off the speed of his bow and fingers, as well as allowing his instrument to sing out.
The concerto also came to the Bowl with videos offering scenic accompaniment for the music — like a TV nature documentary but with more audible substance.
Kevin Puts started everything off on solid ground with “Earth,” which began with pure melodic songfulness as a photo of Earth materialized on the big screens, followed by videos of a plant sprouting, the Matterhorn, and so on. Suddenly, a streak of passionate perpetual motion emerged along with volcanic eruptions before the music arrived back where it started.
Edgar Meyer was assigned “Water,” which eventually morphed into something playful, with big, splashy orchestrations. For some reason, Jake Heggie’s “Fire” and Jennifer Higdon’s “Air” were played in reverse order from what the program book promised, but the unity of the whole work was not disturbed by the switch. The bucolic “Air” was backed by a peaceful forest scene on the monitors whereas “Fire” seemed to form the tough, violent scherzo of The Elements — though the overall language was as light and tonal as the rest of the work.
Having run out of elements to write about, Jessie Montgomery, the youngest composer of the five (born 1981), launched her piece “Space” with a harp-swirling introduction, eventually giving Bell a long, slow cadenza. Without a pause, “Earth” was back for a reprise as our planet rose above the moon’s horizon, followed by a finale to sum things up.
The similarities in musical language between the five composers — all but one of the pieces (“Fire”) began with a lyrical introduction — made the overall unity of the work possible, and the scores generally seemed well suited for the relaxed outdoor ambience of the Bowl. However, the vast majority of Bowl-goers did not get to see all of the accompanying images on the big screens, which frequently cut away to live video of Bell and the LA Phil. Only the high rollers sitting close to the stage could see the complete nature and outer space videos on small flat-screen monitors.
The Elements was the centerpiece of the all-American program entrusted to conductor Rodolfo Barráez, yet another alumnus of Venezuela’s El Sistema program and currently the LA Phil’s assistant conductor. He got the evening off to a rough start with a rather stilted performance of Aaron Copland’s postcard from Latin America, El Salón México. There were awkward syncopations, a missed cue or two, and some strangely slippery string phrasings in spots.
Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, a Bowl fixture, concluded the concert. The Phil must know the piece backward and forward by now; the orchestra played and recorded it with Bernstein himself in 1982 and more recently participated on the soundtrack for Steven Spielberg’s remake of the film. Even so, this performance also began awkwardly with a less-than-jet-propelled Prologue. But Barráez, conducting from memory, got “Somewhere” and the Scherzo under control, and the rest went reasonably well, even if the Bowl has heard more swinging romps through the Mambo.
