The young conductor Ryan Bancroft, a Los Angeles native who has ascended rapidly in recent years and is now based at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, led the LA Phil last weekend in a sensational account of Nielsen's murderously difficult Fourth Symphony. I adore this piece, but I've managed to hear it live only once, in 1994, when Herbert Blomstedt brought it to the NY Phil. (I missed Alan Gilbert's later rendition with the same orchestra.) That 1994 performance threatened to fall apart in the finale, where different sections of the orchestra must trade off unison lines at breakneck speed. The LA Phil managed those passages more or less flawlessly, as Richard Ginnell notes in a San Francisco Classical Voice review. I'd previously encountered Bancroft delivering a cannily controlled, expressively potent Shostakovich Tenth at the Hollywood Bowl — not an easy undertaking in that venue. Ginell goes on to write: "Bancroft may not have the flashy charisma of Dudamel, but based on this performance, if the LA Phil is looking for deep musicianship from a music director candidate, the orchestra might want to give Bancroft a further viewing." He will be back next season, with Shostakovich and Sibelius.
