Sure, The Rite of Spring (1913) gets the marquee. But Gustavo Dudamel—now in his 17th and final season as music director of the LA Phil—has more on his mind than that admittedly seismic pièce de résistance. Before intermission, there’s the 1919 version of The Firebird Suite, a bejeweled tribute to the Russian fantasy world of Stravinsky’s teacher and mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. And before that, the Dude leads the American premiere of the 20-minute LA Phil commission Frenzy: a short symphony, by John Adams (it was the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle that gave the world premiere last year). Commentary by the ever-illuminating composer points to the “generally buoyant and extrovert” nature of the music, which erupts in “real frenetic energy” only as it approaches the finish line. “What makes Frenzy unique in comparison to my other works,” Adams continues, “is its focus, almost to the point of obsession, on the development and transformation of small, vivid motives that continue to resurface in various guises throughout the piece.” That’s a far cry, he points out, from the gradual “change-via-repetition” technique characteristic of his earlier, minimalist-influenced works. “In fact,” Adams concludes, “once completed, Frenzy revealed itself, much to the surprise of its composer, as a melding of the two approaches toward musical form. On the one hand, its rhythmic event horizon is still essentially pulse-driven while on the other its melodic world is about shapeshifting and the ‘spinning out’ of ideas.” Sounds like a keeper. —Matthew Gurewitsch