In her review, Kate Wakeling is left spellbound by the LA Phil’s thrilling portrait of the visionary Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz
Gabriela Ortiz
Revolución Diamantina**; Altar de Cuerda*; Kauyumari
*María Dueñas (violin); **Los Angeles Master Chorale; Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel
Platoon LAPHIL02 80:46 mins
Clip: Revolución diamantina, Act IV
For Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, composing requires two distinct types of brainwork: ‘when I write music,’ she says, ‘ I am always swinging between the rational part, how we function mentally, and the irrational part, the instinct… the magic part.’
This twin approach is clearly heard in her complex, dazzling scores that are at once tautly constructed yet freewheeling in their imaginative reach.
Weaving together Latin and Mexican sonorities and folklore to powerful effect, her music sounds like nobody else’s and this excellent new album of recent works, recorded by longstanding collaborators Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a thing of wonder indeed.
The selection opens with Altar de cuerda, a violin concerto of terrific vivacity and invention.
Ortiz does not intend the altar of the title to be taken in its religious sense, but rather ‘as something symbolic, spiritual, or magical: an altar is a place for bringing music to the forefront.’
As such, Ortiz took as her inspiration everything from the intricacies of Mayan architecture to the Moorish Andalusian roots of her soloist María Dueñas.
The resulting work is at once muscular and luminous, and while the score is daring in its range of timbres and tonalities, its emotional expression is no less immediate.
The second movement, ‘Canto abierto’, is particularly affecting. Opening to a haunting soundscape, the movement explores the idea of Mexico’s open-air chapels, as built by colonial settlers in the 16th century in an effort to catechise the indigenous population.
Ortiz’s thrumming, twinkling score radiates beauty and discomfort in equal measure, and María Dueñas offers a thrillingly gutsy performance, supported at every turn by Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra. It is altogether spine-tingling stuff.
The short orchestral work Kauyumari follows, commissioned to celebrate the return of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to the stage following the pandemic.
Drawing on ideas of ancestral communication among the Huichol people of Mexico, the piece opens to a sense of deep mystery before blossoming into unabashed celebration that sparkles with trumpet fanfares.
The album’s closing work, Revolución Diamantina, is darker in mood. Scored for orchestra and female chorus, this vibrant ballet score explores three key moments in Mexico’s feminist movement: Mexico City’s 2019 ‘Glitter Revolution’ where protesters denounced the rape of a woman by local police; an International Women’s Day march in 2022 that united policewomen and feminist groups; and the 2019 Chilean songs of protest by female collective Las Tesis.
Accordingly, much of Ortiz’s atmospheric, percussion-rich score fizzes with a sense of restless unease.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic deliver a thrilling performance from start to finish, while the women of the Los Angeles Master Chorale are on splendid form, from the chattering intensity they bring to the propulsive ‘Speaking the unspeakable’, to the ethereal beauty of their chorales in the work’s slow and shimmering finale, ‘Todas’.
The album as a whole really is outstanding, bringing together a sense of vision and virtuosity in what is a deeply-felt celebration of the power of music. Kate Wakeling
