Review: Gustavo Dudamel Saves the Day at the Philharmonic

It was lucky that Gustavo Dudamel was in town.

On April 20, the New York Philharmonic announced that Juanjo Mena, who was scheduled to conduct the orchestra in three sold-out concerts starting on Thursday, had fallen ill. Dudamel, the ensemble’s incoming music and artistic director, was already expecting to be around to lead the spring gala on Wednesday.

And so he saved the day. Stepping in for Mena, Dudamel, who assumes his Philharmonic post in 2026, led, in his only subscription concert appearances this season, a dichotomous program of dazzling crowd-pleasers and a thorny modernist work with utmost finesse. Pieces by Ravel and Pablo de Sarasate shone as they should, and the evening’s unlikely centerpiece, Ginastera’s Violin Concerto, was a 30-minute fever dream of serialist fancies and ferocities. (“Ibéria,” from Debussy’s “Images for Orchestra,” was cut after Mena bowed out.)

An evening built from Spanish-tinged French pieces could have slipped into fiery and fragrant clichés, but instead it demonstrated the musical values that the Philharmonic’s audience can expect from Dudamel, including snappy rhythms, neatly managed transitions and fortes so punchy, they could leave a mark on your cheek. Orchestral tuttis had clarity and body from top to bottom.

Dudamel used Ravel’s exquisite interplay of instrumental timbres to enliven the moods of “Rapsodie Espagnole,” which opened the concert. Sharply vivid rather than suggestively chimerical, the scenes and dances had a trim, finely honed character. Dudamel’s clockwork sophistication was better suited to the concert’s closer, Ravel’s beloved “Boléro,” in which he methodically developed tonal richness, sculpted the sound and dialed up the intensity over the piece’s 15-minute span. The sudden, layered climax had the effect of a tsunami: hitting and washing over the auditorium at the same time.

The Philharmonic, which Dudamel will lead more frequently next season before officially undertaking his duties, is already showing signs of his influence. And he collaborated seamlessly with the evening’s soloist, the violinist Hilary Hahn, the orchestra’s artist in residence.

A musician of poise and rounded tone, Hahn proved in the Ginastera that she can make just about anything sound beautiful. In her interpretation, the piece shed its acrid angularity. She folded trills, stops and sweet harmonics into unbroken lines, and when she harmonized with herself, she utilized the plushness and patience familiar from her Bach recordings.