Gustavo Dudamel is undoubtedly the hottest property in conducting at the moment. Already signed to an exclusive contract by Deutsche Grammophon, and attracting high praise from Abbado, Barenboim and Rattle, the 25-year-old Venezuelan made his London debut last summer, when he took over a Prom with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra at short notice. By all accounts it wasn't a hugely successful occasion - but here, taking the Philharmonia through a half-Russian, half-American programme that he had presumably planned himself, Dudamel was dazzling, and the orchestra played for him with wonderful zest and virtuosity. He's clearly not the finished article, of course, and I don't think I want to hear him conduct Mahler's Ninth or the Missa Solemnis for a while yet, but there is real excitement about everything he does, and a real musicality at work, too.
With a shock of dark curls that inevitably recalls the young Simon Rattle, Dudamel bustled onto the platform, and translated that same urgency into his performances. There was no flamboyance or posturing, though, and he used a baton technique that looked entirely functional. He let rip straightaway in the Festive Overture, ramping up the brass in what is one of Shostakovich's most extrovert pieces, but then happily yielded centre stage to Nikolai Lugansky, who was the soloist in Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto. There were lots of good things in that performance, too, without ever quite creating the vivid grotesqueries from either soloist or orchestra that can be found in the concerto - memories of Martha Argerich's incomparable live performances of this piece are hard to erase.
The Symphonic Dances from Bernstein's West Side Story were shaped as a wonderful, seamless span, gradually building the tension to the climactic fight scene and discharging it all in a sweet-toned, touching epilogue. Dudamel then produced an equally punchy account of Silvestre Revueltas's Sensamayá, teasing out its complex rhythmic layers and revelling in its modernist mixture of Stravinsky and Varèse. Absolutely thrilling.
