Posts tagged Muestra
Júbilo en Bellas Artes por un logro social de Venezuela
Nov 17
Publicado originalmente en La Jornada el 17 de noviembre de 2007
El sistema musical de ese país, noble proyecto digno de emularse en México
Desparpajo interpretativo de una cofradía ejemplar de jóvenes y apasionados atrilistas
Los venezolanos abordaron con buena dosis de jícamo y fiesta los pasajes de la obra de Bernstein
En el conmovedor adagietto de Mahler realizaron una sorprendente división de planos sonoros
Después de varios días de intensa expectación, alentada por los reportes de prensa que festejaban de manera unánime sus sonoros éxitos en otras plazas de México y del extranjero, la noche del jueves llegó finalmente al Teatro de Bellas Artes esa formidable orquesta que hasta hace unos años era conocida como la Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar y que hoy es la Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar.
Como tantas y tantas otras cosas que le debemos, es a Eduardo Mata a quien los mexicanos debemos nuestro primer contacto con esta orquesta, así como con el portentoso sistema de educación musical del cual surgió y que es, sin duda, uno de los mayores logros sociales jamás conseguido en América Latina, y un auténtico ejemplo para el mundo entero.
La orquesta venezolana ofreció en Bellas Artes un programa formado por sendas partituras de Bernstein y Mahler, y en ambas confirmó con creces todo lo que de ella se ha dicho recientemente. En el entendido de que la agrupación está de gira no sólo para hacer música de alto nivel sino también para presentarse como la joya indiscutible de lo que en Venezuela se conoce simplemente como El Sistema, el grupo llegó a México con una plantilla cercana a los 200 músicos; la buena noticia, ampliamente anticipada, es que todos y cada uno de ellos tocan, y tocan muy bien.
Al frente de esta joven, entusiasta y eficaz multitud de músicos venezolanos estuvo el igualmente joven director Gustavo Dudamel, quien recientemente ha estado cosechando merecidos y numerosos laureles a lo largo y ancho del mundo musical.
Desde el inicio de las Danzas sinfónicas de West Side Story, de Leonard Bernstein, se hizo evidente la calidad instrumental de la orquesta, así como la habilidad de Dudamel para manejar, controlar y equilibrar a un grupo más numeroso que lo acostumbrado. Entre los múltiples aciertos en la ejecución de esta partitura de Bernstein (que tiene una gran deuda con Aaron Copland), dos fueron particularmente efectivos, y tiene que ver con el carácter dual de la música.
Por un lado, los venezolanos abordaron con una buena dosis de jícamo y fiesta los pasajes de la obra en los que predominan los elementos latinos, tropicales, caribeños. Por el otro, en aquellas partes de West Side Story en las que lo relevante es el jazz y sus derivados, Dudamel y la orquesta venezolana se mostraron adecuadamente sinuosos y sincopados, tocando gozosamente con esa elusiva pero apreciable cualidad que los músicos llaman swing. Es realmente reconfortante ver y oír a una orquesta tan joven tocar con ese descaro y ese desparpajo, sustentados en todo momento por un cimiento musical inamovible.
Cátedra en el ámbito de la actitud
Después, la estupenda ejecución de la Quinta sinfonía de Mahler fue propiciada, entre otras cosas, por un inicio seguro y lleno de aplomo. A lo largo de la obra, Dudamel se mostró como un director pleno y maduro, particularmente en lo que se refiere a la articulación y ensamble de los complicados episodios mahlerianos. Para ello contó con la complicidad de una orquesta capaz de producir una rica y variada gama de timbres, así como un rango dinámico asombrosamente controlado a lo largo de todo su espectro.
Si en los episodios más extrovertidos y robustos de la obra destacaron la potencia y sonoridad de las maderas y los metales, la cuerda marcó con solidez su propio territorio en el conmovedor adagietto, en el que director y orquesta realizaron una sorprendente división de planos sonoros, difícil de escuchar en otras versiones de esta enloquecida obra. Entre otras cosas, esta orquesta tiene una sección de contrabajos portentosa.
Fuera de programa, Dudamel y la orquesta tocaron una versión fresca y extrovertida, distinta a las que solemos escuchar con nuestras orquestas, del famoso Danzón No. 2, de Arturo Márquez, a quien le dedicaron el concierto entero.
Más allá de las evidentes virtudes musicales en lo que se refiere a afinación, calidad de sonido, precisión rítmica y otros atributos apreciables, los integrantes de la Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar dieron una sólida cátedra en ese otro ámbito del quehacer musical que en ocasiones se deja de lado: el ámbito de la actitud.
Desde el primer compás del concierto hasta el último, estos chamos venezolanos tocaron con carácter, concentración, enjundia, pasión y, sobre todo, con un evidente gusto por hacer música, todo ello sustentado por el orgullo de pertenecer a una cofradía ejemplar en la que, más allá de los resultados puramente musicales (que la noche del jueves quedaron diáfanamente evidenciados), lo que cuenta es el benéfico efecto multiplicador que ha llevado la música y la esperanza a todos los rincones de Venezuela.
¡Cuánto podríamos aprender de este noble proyecto, si en verdad nos aplicáramos a ello!
Jóvenes músicos de Venezuela conquistan Estados Unidos
Nov 14
Publicado originalmente en La Jornada el 14 de noviembre de 2007
Gustavo Dudamel y la sinfónica Simón Bolívar culminaron gira triunfante por ese país
Son los artífices del cambio en el mundo de la vertiente clásica, elogia la crítica neoyorquina
El novel director de 26 años se hará cargo de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles, en 2009
La última escala de este periplo internacional será este jueves en la ciudad de México
Nueva York, 13 de noviembre. Un joven venezolano de 26 años de edad, 160 de sus colegas y el visionario maestro de todos ellos (y miles más) han conquistado Estados Unidos.
Gustavo Dudamel culminó una gira triunfante en Estados Unidos al frente de la Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar en un par de conciertos en el Carnegie Hall –su debut en Nueva York. Anteriormente se presentaron en Los Ángeles, San Francisco y Boston donde, como aquí, cambiaron el mundo.
Considerado por los grandes maestros de la música clásica actual como uno de los directores más talentosos del momento, Dudamel encabezó la orquesta Simón Bolívar que impresionó tanto por su elevado nivel técnico como por la pasión y alegría que contagió a sus públicos de costa a costa, aquí. “Es el conductor más asombrosamente talentoso que jamás he visto”, afirma Sir Simon Rattle, director principal de la Filarmónica de Berlín, y con quien compartió uno de los programas en el Carnegie Hall.
Toda la sala se puso de pie
Al culminar su gira anoche en el Carnegie Hall, la orquesta Simón Bolívar se movía como el mar, a veces tranquila, a veces embravecida, al interpretar el Concierto para Orquesta de Bela Bartok bajo la batuta de Dudamel. El concierto se expresó con tal entrega y energía que la respuesta del público ante este regalo musical fue algo que casi nunca sucede entre los públicos neoyorquinos, famosos por su exigencia (a veces, más bien, por su arrogancia): la sala entera se puso de pie y ante una ovación interminable el director se vio obligado a regresar tres veces al escenario ante los “bravos” y expresiones de júbilo.
Cuando Rattle, director de la mejor orquesta del mundo, la Filarmónica de Berlín, tomó la batuta frente a los jóvenes para tocar la Sinfonía 10 de Dimitri Shostakovich, esa misma energía sacudió una de las grandes salas de la música mundial, provocando otra ovación sostenida de inmensa gratitud. Para celebrar, tocaron Mambo, de la obra West Side Story, de Leonard Bernstein, la cual interpretaron como un mambo real, con los músicos tomando turnos en hacer girar sus instrumentos, levantarse en conjunto para gritar “mambo”, mientras de repente dos violinistas empezaron a bailar, contagiando de movimiento a un público que –en este tipo de salas y actos– no suele mover las caderas. Triunfando así, levantando sus instrumentos al aire, concluyó la gira.
Los 160 músicos fueron a celebrar más tarde, según se enteró La Jornada, al Hard Rock Café de Times Square, por si alguien deseaba comprobar que son jóvenes.
Las reseñas de los conciertos en los medios estadunidenses a lo largo de la gira en ambas costas celebraron en tonos de puro éxtasis las actuaciones del joven maestro y sus colegas. “Es el show más grandioso del mundo”, afirmó el crítico cultural del Los Ángeles Times, e insistió que ese es un hecho, no una opinión: “Después de atestiguar la histeria masiva entre un público de 2 mil 200 personas y tras observar una orquesta lograr cosas que ninguna otra ha hecho de esa manera, ahora tengo la obligación de reportero de registrar los hechos: la Tierra circula el Sol; El Grande (el gran sismo que se espera ocurra en California) golpeará, tarde o temprano, a Los Ángeles; los venezolanos, bajo su conductor de 26 años, son el futuro”, afirmó Mark Swed.
El Boston Globe reportó que “olas de entusiasmo” inundaron la sala sinfónica, ante la “asombrosa energía y puro delirio de su música”.
Pero todos los críticos también reconocieron la cuna donde nacieron estos jóvenes: el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles, experimento extraordinario que se ha desarrollado durante 33 años en su país, y que ahora cuenta con un apoyo más amplio que nunca del gobierno venezolano.
Fundado en 1975 por José Antonio Abreu, el “sistema” ahora incorpora unos 250 mil jóvenes, mil 800 maestros, 246 centros educativos y 125 orquestas; Dudamel y la Orquesta Simón Bolívar son sus estrellas. Este año, el presidente Hugo Chávez anunció que incrementará el financiamiento del (sistema) para lograr incorporar un millón de participantes. Gustavo Dudamel reconoce que él es quien es hoy, gracias al sistema, y ha declarado: “no estamos buscando una meta personal, siempre es colectiva. Soy producto del sistema, y en el futuro, estaré ahí, trabajando para las próximas generaciones”, comentó al New York Times (su revista publicó un extenso y excelente reportaje sobre el maestro y el sistema hace un par de semanas).
Elaboró más sobre cómo el sistema ha rescatado a miles de jóvenes, como él, al integrarlos a una gran “familia” musical, como comentó a La Jornada en entrevista con Pablo Espinosa durante su presentación de Monterrey, a finales del mes pasado (La Jornada, 29 de octubre).
Iniciativa exportable
Para el maestro Rattle, el “sistema es la cosa más importante que está ocurriendo en la música clásica en cualquier parte del mundo”, reportó el New York Times. Su ejemplo esta inspirando a casi todos los países de América Latina, junto con algunos europeos, y ahora Estados Unidos.
Todo esto, a partir de Dudamel y la orquesta, acaba de cambiar el panorama cultural de Los Ángeles –la segunda ciudad más grande del país– donde junto con su concierto se anunció formalmente que esa urbe impulsará un proyecto de educación musical con el modelo del programa el venezolano. La Filarmónica de Los Ángeles y el alcalde Antonio Villaraigosa revelaron que esto se iniciará en una sola zona marginada, pero que el objetivo a largo plazo es otorgar un instrumento musical y un lugar en una orquesta a todo niño y joven que lo desee en esa ciudad.
Dudamel estará ahí para dar forma a la iniciativa: ha sido contratado como el próximo director musical de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles, a partir de 2009.
A la vez, también están cambiando la música clásica aquí. Swed, el crítico de música de Los Ángeles Times, considera que estos venezolanos son gran parte del cambio en el mundo de la música clásica, y su forma particular de abordar la música, muy suyo, contiene una “amenaza al status quo”. Argumenta que los venezolanos “lo han hecho solos, no han ido a (la famosa escuela de música) Julliard, y Julliard no ha enviado a masas de instructores a ellos. No han tomado clases (…) con músicos famosos. Su éxito implica que toda la estructura de clase de la música clásica ahora está en peligro de deshacerse”.
Así, Dudamel y sus 160 colegas, y sobre todo el maestro de todos ellos, Abreu, están cambiando al mundo, como comprueba su paso por Estados Unidos. Para cualquiera en México que lo dude, podrá comprobarlo esta semana: la próxima y última escala de esta gira internacional es la ciudad de México, este 15 de noviembre, en el Palacio de Bellas Artes.
Youth Handles the Serving, in Large, Robust Portions
Nov 14
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: November 14, 2007
Publicado originalmente en The NY Times
Simon Rattle leads the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in an encore performance of "Mambo!" - Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times
Inevitably, the Sunday afternoon concert at Carnegie Hall by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela became an occasion to assess the work of the ensemble’s talked-about and fast-rising music director, Gustavo Dudamel, making his New York debut.
But the orchestra itself was the center of attention on Monday night in the second and final program at Carnegie Hall. The news was the technically astonishing and powerfully communicative playing of these dedicated and accomplished young musicians, who range in age, roughly, from 15 to 25.
Of course, Mr. Dudamel, just 26, who began the concert conducting Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, deserves enormous credit for the high level and intensity of this youth orchestra, which he has led since 1999. And the players proved that they could adapt and work with a master in the second half of the program, when Simon Rattle conducted Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor. Yes, amid these young Venezuelans, the youthful Mr. Rattle, all of 51, still looked like an elder statesman of music. Context is everything.
Gustavo Dudamel leads the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela in a performance at Carnegie Hall - Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times
The orchestra’s appearances were officially part of Carnegie Hall’s Berlin in Lights Festival. Mr. Rattle and members of the Berlin Philharmonic, which he directs, have been mentors to Mr. Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar orchestra. The link may have been a stretch. But who cares? The audience that awarded both performances frenzied ovations would have been there under any circumstances.
Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was partly fashioned to show off virtuosity. The piece brought out the best in Mr. Dudamel and his players. There are some 200 musicians in the orchestra, and most seemed to be crowded onto the stage for this performance. In climactic fortissimo passages of both scores, the sheer richness and visceral power of the sound was awesome.
Typically, the more players involved, the harder it is to play together. But these musicians perform with such discipline and well-honed precision that they can go for maximum expression and follow the lead of their impetuous conductor.
Mr. Dudamel has a keen ear for instrumental coloring and musical character. In the opening of the first movement the hazy tremolos in the high strings had an eerie allure. When the clarinet played a sultry melody over a quietly restless orchestral backdrop, the ensemble gave the music an undulant, almost Latin American tinge.
The third movement, an elegy, was transfixing and nocturnal, at once calming and unsettling. The perpetual-motion fifth movement often seems the least substantial music in the score, a toss-off, high-energy finale. But it was the highlight of this performance, played at daring tempos with rhapsodic fervor, even in the intricate fugato outbursts, where it’s easy for overlapping lines to go astray.
In Shostakovich’s daunting 10th Symphony (1953), Mr. Rattle empowered the players to take risks and play all out, leaving matters of control to him. And there was control in this formidable performance of Shostakovich’s 60-minute score. The brooding and moody first movement, with its long passages of ruminative counterpoint, unfolded with grim yet inexorable force. In the second movement — brutal, driven, full of raucous bursts of dissonance, thought by some to be a parodistic portrait of Stalin, who died while Shostakovich was composing this score — Mr. Rattle proved every bit as wild and daring as his exuberant young players.
When it ended, Mr. Rattle, with not a trace of British reserve, dived among the players and engaged in a hugfest. Not to be outdone by Mr. Dudamel, he led the orchestra in a reprise of the hit encore from Sunday afternoon, the “Mambo” from Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” Mr. Rattle kept turning to the audience to lead shouts of “mambo!” as the Venezuelan musicians played and danced their hearts out.
Berlin in Lights? I don’t think so.
Fountain of youth
Nov 9
Waves of excitement sweep Symphony Hall under baton of Gustavo Dudamel, 26
Publicado originalmente en el Boston Globe
By Jeremy Eichler
Globe Staff / November 9, 2007
Maybe it was the moment between pieces on Wednesday night when some 200 young musicians onstage simultaneously ditched their formal wear and donned bright yellow-red-and-blue jackets, transforming Symphony Hall into a riot of color. Or maybe it was when, after a triumphant night of playing, they joyously raised their instruments into the air as a full house stood for yet another ovation. Or more likely, it was from the first real climax of the opening piece, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, when a wiry young conductor flicked his wrist and unleashed a massive surge of orchestral electricity. That’s when it became obvious that this was not a typical concert in Symphony Hall. This was the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, with its shaggy-haired, newly-minted-celebrity maestro Gustavo Dudamel.
In case you haven’t heard, this youth orchestra and this conductor are the most buzzed-about pair in classical music today. And for once, it’s not the kind of buzz driven by glossy promotion or some scandalous album cover. The genuine excitement behind the SBYO and Dudamel is driven by two things: first, the astonishing energy and sheer exhilaration of their music-making, and second, the inspiring national program in Venezuela referred to simply as El Sistema, which has given instruments to poor kids across the country and placed them in a network of orchestras starting in preschool. About 250,000 kids are participating; 75 percent live below the poverty line.
The SBYO is the top orchestra of El Sistema, and its playing is something that has to be experienced live to fully grasp (the group’s two CDs on Deutsche Grammophon don’t quite cut it). That applies as well to Dudamel, who at the tender age of 26 was recently named the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Viewed in person, his conducting has a searing intensity when called for but also a fantastic dexterity that allows him to keep this huge orchestra’s many gears on track with more success than anyone could expect. Nor did he seem to be conducting for the audience’s benefit, which can always be a concern with a conductor this physically gifted. Every gesture was organic to the music at hand.
But it’s not right to single out the conductor alone here; this orchestra plays with a spirit that is heard all too rarely, if ever, in the professional music world. Whatever passion a conductor might project from the podium can often dissipate after the first few stands of strings. With the SBYO, the vitality lofts in from the back of the sections and rises up from the floorboards (one violinist kept levitating out of his chair). The playing had a blazing heat at key moments in the Bartok and in the finale of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, but also remarkable clarity.
Sometimes when young musicians tear into the music they love, there is a certain scrappy quality that creeps in. Little of that here. One could quibble about a few tempo choices in the Beethoven or the pacing of certain transitions in the Bartok, but the bigger picture was so persuasive, nit-picking seems beside the point.
After intermission came a rhythmically charged traversal of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story,” and then the group really let loose in three encores: a reprise of Bernstein’s “Mambo” and works by Arturo Marquez and Alberto Ginastera. In the middle of playing, they started spinning their cellos and basses, twirling their trumpets and violins, dancing and even trying out a Fenway-style wave. Ovations followed every single piece. It was also notable that Dudamel did not take a single bow from the podium but received the applause from within his group.
Another catalyst of spontaneous ovations was José Antonio Abreu, the visionary 68-year-old Venezuelan who founded El Sistema and who preaches a gospel of “spiritual affluence.” The crowd rose at one point at the mere mention of his name. He deserves it many times over, and the empirical success of his work in Venezuela is having ripple effects that could potentially shift the prism on arts education in this country.
New England Conservatory, which presented the concert with help from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Celebrity Series of Boston, held a public symposium Wednesday afternoon at which Abreu spoke. He also dropped by a morning seminar in which experts from across the field were discussing the big question: What insights can be drawn from El Sistema and applied to the United States? Similar discussions are happening around the country. They are vitally important, and in the meantime, this orchestra is the best possible emissary for the cause.
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
The New Guy: Gustavo Dudamel
Nov 8
Publicado originalmente en LA Weekly el 8 de noviembre de 2007
Disponible en línea en el Sitio Web del autor
By Alan Rich
Strength in Numbers
Chances are that the Philharmonic’s new music director, when he takes over the podium a couple of years from now, will not ask the orchestra to perform in patriotic jackets, nor will he ask the players to fling them out into the audience after the last encore. He is unlikely to demand that they twirl their instruments between solos, or toss them skyward at the slightest provocation. Yet these were some of the shenanigans in the final moments in the second of two concerts last week by the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and its – soon to be our – switched-on conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. With a capacity crowd in the hall tearing down the virtual goalposts and another onstage matching them cheer for cheer, you had to be there to experience the pandemonium. By any standard – social, political, musical – it was totally deserved.
There was a lot of talk about youth orchestras here last week. There was a symposium in which important people – the mayor, Philharmonic people, education people – spoke about the obvious benefits of full-fledged symphony-size orchestras as an extracurricular activity, moving on to forming serious ensembles, like the Bolívar and the Sibelius Academy that was here two weeks ago and the UBS Orchestra still to come, with players ages 18 to 24. We have such orchestras here, like the sleepy American Youth Symphony, whose free concerts at Royce Hall draw big, sleepy crowds; what we don’t have – yet – is a firecracker leader to inspire such an orchestra with a sense of its own importance, to its community, to its players. That will take a few more symposiums.
Here comes Dudamel, and the best news is that he’s real, a serious and dedicated musician who’s seized by the music he’s performing, and that he’s already a practiced hand in forming great and spirited young orchestras. His orchestra numbered something like 200, against our own Philharmonic’s 106. Just the sight of all those chairs on the empty stage was enough to turn you – or me, at least – dizzy. Dudamel led the big works on both programs – the Fifth symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler – from memory; okay, he’s recorded them both and is entitled to know them by heart. What’s important is the way both these works have come to live within him. The baton technique, mostly a forward thrust, is clear and not particularly graceful. His left-hand motions are more fascinating: also not graceful, not swooping, but with each finger delivering a separate message.
Of the two symphonies, I was more won over by the Mahler; I’d held off hearing the disc. Disney Hall offered no resistance to the mighty onslaught of 11 double basses, eight horns and similar bloated figures across the board. There was a fine, light humor in the pacing of the scherzo, and an even lighter touch in the folksy moments of the finale. The notorious – yet noble - adagietto was, to my taste, paced exactly right.
Beyond the inevitable wayward horn here and bassoon there, the Beethoven performance seemed to these ears somewhat waterlogged by the weight of it all. Even with the double-bass contingent whittled down to 10 – from the previous day’s 11 – I found the sound of four horns (for Beethoven’s two) and I-forget-how-many bassoons (for Beethoven’s most interesting scoring, his bassoon pairing) just a shade murky, no matter how excellent the performers and how spirited the splendid young conductor’s choice of tempos. But that crescendo out of the gloomy reaches of the scherzo, and the impact of the trumpets announcing the triumphant arrival at the golden frontier of C major, could not have been more thrilling. That’s why we need orchestras, and conductors, and Beethoven.
Olé
The ersatz conviviality of the Bernstein West Side Story dances had begun the first program (of two); now, following the Beethoven on the second, it was time to dig seriously into where these marvelous music people had gleaned their effervescence. Music by Mexico’s Arturo Márquez and José Pablo Moncayo and Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera – all throbbing with hot rhythms and that major/minor delicious uncertainty that colors the lifestyle south of the border – completed the printed part of the program. Then the lights went down for a few seconds; when they came up again, the whole orchestra sported the Venezuelan finery that I’m sure you all saw on YouTube.
Then who should show up but John Williams, to tone things down a peg with theStar Wars theme. (Surely, even he knows better music than that.) Then Gustavo – excuse me, Maestro Dudamel – got his podium back for three more numbers, including a replay of the Bernstein “Mambo” number from the night before, with the crowd getting happier and more insistent and the jacket biz . . . For all I know, they may still be there.
In the audience sat José Antonio Abreu, the distinguished gentleman who, with a group of musical advisers, dreamed up the National System of Youth Orchestras – known as El Sistema – that has now given Venezuela 130 youth orchestras comparable to Simón Bolívar, countless children’s orchestras and more than 30 adult orchestras, many of them peopled by children out of impoverished neighborhoods, given their instruments by the state. Put this together with the chorus that came up a few years ago to perform Golijov’s St. Mark’s Passion and you have a compelling picture of a national musical subsidy that needs a lot of study in this country. Perhaps more than symposiums, even.
The people’s choice?
Nov 8
Publicado originalmente en Boston Phoenix el 08-11-07
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
Gustavo Dudamel, in case you hadn’t heard, is the 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor who’s going to save classical music. He’s the product of the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela, the fabulously successful initiative that’s enrolled some 250,000 youngsters, most of them from poor backgrounds. In 2004 he won the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg. He’s been taken under the wing of Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle. In August 2006, he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood. (The program was Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, and Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat.) Now he’s been tapped to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, starting in 2009. In his New York Times Magazine profile (“Conductor of the People”) two weeks back, Arthur Lubow wrote, “There was a sense that she [LA Philharmonic president Deborah Borda] had snaffled the Man o’ War or Secretariat of the classical-music racetrack.”
Last night at Symphony Hall, under the joint auspices of New England Conservatory, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and the BSO, Dudamel made his Boston debut at the head of his own Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, which is touring the US. Back home, this orchestra is (or was) known as the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar; its members are all young, but putting the word “youth” in its title smacks of apology, or of inviting modest expectations. If, on the other hand, the idea is simply to attract young audiences, it’s working: Symphony Hall was packed (what’s the last time you saw people holding “Need tickets” signs outside?), the crowd younger than usual, and more Hispanic. It was also quieter than usual, and, glory be, there was no applause between movements.
The originally announced program was Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (a BSO commission that made its debut in Symphony Hall back in 1944), the Orchestral Suite from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and “selections from Latin American music,” but someone must have decided that it needed more ballast: Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony (which the orchestra performs on its first Deutsche Grammophon release, along with the Fifth) was added, and the Latin American music relegated to the encores. That made for a three-hour-plus evening. Dudamel didn’t take the podium till 8:15, and the second half of the concert was preceded by 15 minutes of acknowledgments, proclamations, and presentations, much of it delivered through a malfunctioning mic.
What’s immediately striking about the Simón Bolívar, apart from its youth, is its size — more than 100 strings in the program, and close to that number on stage. The violins were deployed in the “traditional” 20th-century fashion, massed on the conductor’s left; this worked out fine for the Bartók, where at one point in the third-movement Elegia the violins are pitted against the violas, less well in the Beethoven, which was written for an antiphonal arrangement of first and second violins. Dressed, like the male orchestra members, in a suit, Dudamel conducted with a baton but no score.
Dudamel’s virtues and shortcomings were palpable throughout the Concerto for Orchestra (his live performance of this with the LA Philharmonic is available as a DG digital download), and so were the players’. This is young people’s musicmaking. Shaking his hair and jumping up and down, Dudamel offered cogent phrasing and a powerful rhythmic impetus; the orchestra responded with a big, full, visceral sound. Attacks were ferocious, balances were mostly pellucid (with some great lower-string moments), and there were delicious woodwind solos like the agrodolce oboe in the Introduzione opening movement. The players swayed in their seats, every bit as animated as their conductor. It was all fresh but not always wise. The snickering chatter of winds in the second-movement “Giuoco delle coppie” (“Game of Couples”) should sound like a murder of crows; this was an exaltation of larks. (Dudamel did observe Bartók’s not-at-all-intuitive phrasing in the brass chorale that followed.) Slow openings meandered (the beginning of the Elegia should recall the beginning of Bartók’s opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle); transitions didn’t always register. The parody section (Bartók is making fun of the opening march movement of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony) of the fourth-movement “Intermezzo interrotto” was very parodic, but after the tuba raspberries the fffcrashing cymbals made a parody of the parody. The loud, hectic Finale had almost too much energy, with the ideas all bouncing off one another — you couldn’t hear the grinding allusion to Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps in the cellos and basses. Plenty of bang for your buck, but not much nuance.
Live, the Beethoven Seventh had the frisson that the DG recording lacks, and a golden Viennese tone, and revolution was, rightly, in the air, but it kept disintegrating into random violence. The reading was high-strung, high-octane (concertmaster Alejandro Carreño kept rising out of his seat), passionate but not always poetic, at times bombastic in its tub-thumping timpani. The transitions didn’t improve; textures clotted, and long-term logic was lacking. The Allegro con brio finale was a blur. I doubt any orchestra this size can play so loud and so fast and realize Beethoven’s intentions. I reveled in the noisy ecstasy right along with Dudamel, the orchestra, and the audience, but by the end I felt bludgeoned.
Worse was to come. You wouldn’t think any outfit could mess up West Side Story — particularly a Latin one, with the players snapping their fingers and shouting, “¡Mambo!” — but this was Day-Glo Bernstein, all coarse, assaultive brass, and too fast for the girls (or the guys) to swivel their hips. I kept thinking I was at a David Mamet play. At the end, Dudamel posed motionless with his baton, keeping the audience suspended, before letting it drop ever so slowly.
For the encores, the lights dimmed and the orchestra members hastily donned zip-up jackets with a replica on the Venezuelan flag on the front. Huge applause, and why not? They played a Latin dance suite, and then a less classical, more uninhibited take on West Side Story’s high-school high jinks, and then more dance music. The strings twirled their instruments, the girls jumped up and shimmied, the brass waved from side to side, everybody started popping up. By the end, they were all marching around, even launching an assault on the podium; Dudamel disappeared and the players took command.
Is this the future of classical music? Making Bartók and Beethoven sound more spontaneous and less fixated on the score — more like jazz — is good. Making them sound like rock in order to appeal to young people is not so good. As for Dudamel, at 26 he can hardly be expected to possess the maturity of a Fritz Reiner or a Carlos Kleiber. But after the Times has touted you as “the most-talked-about young musician in the world” and you land a great job in LA (as opposed to the old-fashioned European slog of rising through the provincial opera houses) and get to hang out with Tom Cruise and David Beckham and Joe Torre, does the hype get in the way of the hard work?
Review: Fiery Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra sets Bernstein ablaze
Nov 6
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Publicado originalmente en el San Francisco Chronicle
If you were to judge the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela solely from the exhilarating video clip that’s been making the rounds on the Internet – the one of the young players and their music director, Gustavo Dudamel, kicking the stuffing out of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mambo” at London’s Royal Albert Hall in August – you might easily conclude that this is one of the most dynamic and daring ensembles around.
And if you caught their remarkable concert in Davies Symphony Hall on Sunday night, you’d know you were right.
Appearing as part of the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series, Dudamel and his orchestra unleashed an extraordinary musical fireball, which they then shaped into the form of music by Shostakovich, Bernstein and more. The level of musical sophistication and eloquence on display was astonishing, but so too was the sheer energy involved.
Crowded into Davies like so many supercharged particles – the orchestra tours with an unprecedented 180 musicians, of whom only 140 could fit onto the stage – these players seemed to be straining to cut loose.
And although the concert, which ran more than 2 1/2 hours, included plentiful stretches of lyrical and translucent playing, its real glories came when the performers mustered a huge and rhythmically compelling noise – in the aforementioned “Mambo,” in the terrifyingly explosive second movement of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, and in ferocious excerpts from Alberto Ginastera’s “Estancia.”
For observers of the music scene, Sunday’s concert was a double introduction. On the one hand, there was the orchestra itself, the pinnacle of Venezuela’s practically unparalleled government-sponsored system of music education (José Antonio Abreu, the musician and economist responsible for its success was in Davies Sunday, and received many waves of tribute from the players).
On the other, there was Dudamel, who became music director of the orchestra at 17 and now, at 26, is probably the most talked-about conductor in the world. Two years from now, in a fascinatingly high-stakes gamble, he is set to become music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
To some extent, these two facets turned out to be one. To witness these musicians in collaboration is to understand just how closely their respective sensibilities are bound up with one another.
Dudamel’s approach to the music – his taste for fiery tempos and emphatic accents, the brash impetuousness of his phrasing – is mirrored in the sound of the orchestra, with its agile strings and focused, slightly aggressive woodwinds and brass. And it’s rare to see an orchestra and conductor so rhythmically attuned, as though Dudamel’s beat were only a confirmation of what every member of the orchestra already knew in his or her bones.
In interviews, Dudamel talks about the conductor being a member of the ensemble, but he’s not alone in that kind of rhetoric. What’s rarer is to see a conductor actually walk the walk: Not once in the course of the evening did Dudamel take a solo bow. Every acknowledgment of the audience’s tumultuous applause was in the bosom of the orchestra.
As for whether Dudamel will be able to bring a similar kind of sorcery to his new post – whether, to put it crudely, he really is all he’s cracked up to be – every indication on Sunday suggested that the answer is yes. This was the work of an imaginative and superbly virtuosic conductor (he returns to Davies in March to guest-conduct the San Francisco Symphony in music of Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff).
Conducting the entire program from memory, Dudamel infused every movement and every measure with a feeling of urgency and clarity – not a single moment seemed like a throwaway. But at the same time, he avoided the obvious danger of overstressing things and losing a sense of priorities.
In the Shostakovich, he gathered up the potentially sprawling strands of the expansive opening movement – a marathon that in the wrong circumstances can swamp the rest of the symphony – and sorted out the most important elements from the subsidiaries. The result was a discourse whose shape and direction never flagged, and in the subsequent movements Dudamel deftly elicited the music’s blend of dark humor and blazing self-assertion.
The Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” occupying most of the second half, were done with wonderful fluency and freedom as well as utter rhythmic precision. The program concluded with a selection billed only as “music from Latin America,” which turned out to be a sampling of dance-flavored pieces by Ginastera, Arturo Márquez and Pedro Gutierrez.
The encores were truly that – reprises from earlier in the evening of Bernstein’s “Mambo” and Ginastera’s “Malambo” – but now done up with exuberant dance moves and flashy twirls of the instruments, by players who had donned windbreakers in the blue, red and yellow of Venezuela. The mood was one of triumphant pride, well-earned and widely shared.
E-mail Joshua Kosman at jkosman@sfchronicle.com.
Buzzy Star Dudamel, 26, Brings His Kid Orchestra to Disney Hall
Nov 5
Publicado originalmente en Bloomberg.com
By David Mermelstein
Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — No one at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night will likely forget the sight of 170 young musicians in matching yellow-blue-and-red windbreakers whooping it up onstage. The capacity crowd could have been cheering a winning sports team.
The occasion was the second of two concerts featuring Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in its U.S. debut. The windbreakers, complete with white stars and evoking the Venezuelan flag, were donned for the encores, which included the theme to “Star Wars” conducted by its creator John Williams.
Otherwise, the youngsters (aged 12 to 26) were in the hands of their star boss, Gustavo Dudamel, just 26 himself, and their music director since 1999.
The buzz surrounding Dudamel has been immense, and deservedly so. The adventurous people who run the Los Angeles Philharmonic last spring named him to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director at Disney Hall. So this concert had special significance. In two years, the Venezuelan will be maestro of this stunning house designed by Frank Gehry.
Though these young players won’t be relocating to L.A., Dudamel’s success in the City of Angels is also theirs.
Like his charges, Dudamel rose through the ranks of “el sistema,” shorthand for Venezuela’s vaunted music-education system, which teaches instrumental music to about 250,000 predominantly poor children and sponsors roughly 125 youth orchestras. (In addition to producing Dudamel, el sistema has supplied the Berlin Philharmonic with double-bassist Edicson Ruiz, 22, the second-youngest player in its history.)
Mixed Program
As de facto cultural ambassadors, Dudamel and his orchestra understandably wanted to show off their country’s achievement, and their programs effectively combined familiar works by Beethoven, Mahler and Bernstein with underappreciated scores from Latin America’s rich orchestral tradition — in this case by Jose Pablo Moncayo, Arturo Marquez and Alberto Ginastera.
The musical results, though inherently inspiring, were mixed. With so many musicians on stage — never fewer than 100 and often half as much again — subtlety was not an option. In the Latin works, the muchness at least enhanced the fun, with the orchestra’s blaring brasses, swooping strings and assertive percussion nearly blowing the roof off Disney Hall.
Regulating dynamics proved next to impossible, even for a skilled technician such as Dudamel, a man with a clear beat and sensible gestures. Like his hero Bernstein, whose “Symphonic Dances From West Side Story” opened Thursday’s concert, Dudamel isn’t afraid to jump when the music moves him, and his undulant body language and shaking black curls provide appealing showmanship.
Modernist Twist
More depth than dash is required for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which followed the Bernstein. There were moments to savor, as Dudamel pointed up an unanticipated modernist twist or martial turn in the score.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony the following night was more gratifying. Ironically, given the ages of the players and conductor, this was an old-school account: blunt and big, if not very nimble and flexible. Yet who could resist the energy of this storming-the-heavens account? Not many at Disney Hall.
Gustavo Dudamel leads the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at Symphony Hallin Boston on Nov. 7 and at Carnegie Hall in New York on Nov. 11 and 12. He also conducts the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall from Nov. 29 through Dec. 4.
Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, the greatest show on Earth
Nov 5
Publicado originalmente en: latimes.com el 05 de noviembre de 2007
The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela conducted by Gustavo Dudamel is the greatest show on Earth. That was obvious Thursday night at the first of the astonishing orchestra’s two concerts last week in Walt Disney Concert Hall. Critics, of course, aren’t supposed to say such things in reviews, so I quoted Simon Rattle.
But after witnessing the mass hysteria among an audience of 2,200 on Friday night, and after observing an orchestra perform feats no orchestra has in quite the same way, I now have a reporter’s obligation to state the facts. The Earth revolves around the sun; the Big One will, sooner or later, hit L.A.; the Venezuelans, under their 26-year-old conductor, are the future.
For Thursday’s ambitious program, Dudamel demonstrated that a really big band (160-plus) could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee (at least one definition of “the greatest” I accept) — and also penetrate deeply into deeply penetrating symphonic thought. This was a spectacular, stirring and flashy show.
Friday’s program was even flashier. Dudamel began with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The orchestra was large, far larger than is fashionable in these historically informed days, but not humongous.
There were certainly plenty of basses to dig in ferociously. Dudamel, who conducted everything without scores both evenings, inhabited the orchestra. A wild enthusiastic swoop of his arms elicited a wild enthusiastic swoop of strings. This was bold big Beethoven, but the playing was much too joyously alive to be old-fashioned big Beethoven.
Care must be taken not to condescend to these kids. Some are as young as 12, although most look to be in their early 20s (26 is the cutoff age). They are not great young musicians, they are world-class players, period. They provide uniquely visceral thrills as an ensemble. But in two evenings, I also heard more wonderfully expressive oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin, horn and trumpet solos than I could count.
The second half of the evening, devoted to Latin American music, was when the audience began, understandably, to lose it. The orchestra swelled to what must have been close to 200. Jose Pablo Moncayo’s Mexican classic “Huapango” and the more recent and just as lively and populist “Danzon No. 2″ by the contemporary Mexican composer Arturo Marquez, were dazzling in their rhythmic vitality and flirtatious dynamics.
Two years before he will become the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s music director and in but two visits to Disney, Dudamel has already begun to daringly exploit the hall’s acoustics. The Simon Bolivar’s soft playing is as impressive as its earsplitting climaxes. The crescendo at the end of Marquez’s “Danzon” went from nothing to an earthquake in a handful of expertly gauged seconds.
The ballet suite from Ginastera’s “Estancia,” written in 1941 for the American Ballet Caravan, closed the formal program with scenes from Argentine country life. Dances for farmhands, cowboys and the like were made into an Imax-sized epic.
The hall then went dark for 15 seconds. When the lights came up, the players all had on Venezuelan flag jackets and the hall had become a riot of color. A fan of John Williams, Dudamel had asked the composer to conduct his theme from “Star Wars” as a surprise encore.
Appearing as in awe of these players as they were of him, Williams conducted as though he were driving a supercar for the first time, knowing that the slightest touch on the accelerator could produce a galvanic force.
For the “Mambo” from “West Side Story” and the “Malambo” from “Estancia,” yet another surge of electricity sent shock waves through orchestra and audience. In perfect control yet utterly free, the musicians danced, twirled their instruments in the air, swayed in great waves. From the Renaissance to the present, composers have dreamed of exactly this — the mastery of chaos.
Finally, Dudamel walked into the audience and brought onstage Jose Antonio Abreu — founder of El Sistema, the program that trains Venezuela’s young musicians — and enticed him to conduct the country’s national anthem, which was played with rapt fervor. Many in the audience sang along.
Afterward, I heard it suggested that, in a gesture of international goodwill, these players might then have ended with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Instead, they took off their jackets and flung them into the roaring crowd.
As I said, this is the greatest show on Earth.
Dudamel is absolutely revelatory
Nov 3
Publicado originalmente en latimes.com
Simon says it is the most important thing happening in classical music in the world. “Simon” is Simon Rattle, music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. “It” is El Sistema, the youth orchestra program in Venezuela.
“It” might also describe the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, the cream of a 250,000-student crop, which began its first U.S. tour at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night under its music director, Gustavo Dudamel. And if this incredible orchestra hits San Francisco, Boston and New York with the same revelatory effect as at the first Disney concert, our country, with its poor music education, may never — should never — be the same.
Happily, the orchestra and Dudamel, who will become music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, are hot properties. TV’s “60 Minutes,” which gave El Sistema its first big blast of publicity eight years ago, was on hand in L.A. to film a follow-up story on Dudamel, who at 26 is a spectacularly rising star worldwide. The Philharmonic has been under an international barrage of interview requests ever since its Easter surprise announcement of Dudamel’s appointment.
Both Thursday’s concert and another on Friday night had sold out quickly, and Internet ticket scalping had reached near Ian McKellen-like proportions. When an orchestra of 160 slowly filed onto the Disney stage Thursday, the applause grew and grew. When Dudamel walked out, he might have been a rock star. When the concert ended, he might have hit a home run to win the World Series.
The program — Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” and Mahler’s mighty, 70-minute Fifth Symphony — wasn’t slight. Dudamel has ideas about these pieces, and they are mostly about how to make every incident in the scores either heart-stoppingly thrilling or heart-meltingly tender, how to shape a melodic line in the most comely fashion and how to coax a rhythmic phrase into dancing its way to every corner of a concert hall.
The stage was crammed full of youngsters, ages 12 to 26. Individually these are first-rate players (the horns alone would be the envy of many a brand-name band). But they also form an organism like no other. In furious passages, masses of string players swayed in their seats and wind players bobbed their heads as if guided by a single animating life force.
“West Side Story” is a story that resonates with these young Venezuelans. Many come from poverty, and all know about gangs on the streets of their capital, Caracas. Dudamel’s accents were like startling gunshots; the brutality of the “Rumble” felt all too immediate; “Somewhere” was almost unbearably melancholic; and “Mambo” was a mambo, a real one.
The concert was delayed after intermission to allow Jose Antonio Abreu, who founded El Sistema 30 years ago, to get to the hall (his plane landed at 7:30). His devotees describe him as a saintly snake charmer who has managed to get the program funded through 10 administrations, with Venezuela’s current leader, Hugo Chavez, the latest eager supporter.
Mahler’s Fifth was then played as life-and-death music, which is how Mahler intended the symphony, what with its angry funeral opening, its waltz-goes-mad Scherzo, love letter Adagietto and neurotic high spirits Finale.
Dudamel’s Mahler is not neurotic. But it is violent, and it is exalted, and it is, at many moments, exquisitely beautiful. The power and ferocity in the first two movements astonished, given that this was an ensemble at least 50% larger than the normal Mahler orchestra. But also, given how expressive and clear the inner lines sounded, a law or two of physics must have been overcome.
Dudamel has this symphony in his blood — he conducted without a score. Still, no 26-year-old can be expected to get it all. The Scherzo, so exciting moment to moment, didn’t entirely hold together. The slow movement didn’t feel too slow, as it does on his new recording, but the last movement did slightly. Then again, neither Leonard Bernstein nor Michael Tilson Thomas truly mastered this symphony until they were more than twice Dudamel’s age.
No matter, the performance caught Mahler’s spirit, and it caught the spirit of a generation of young people who have what it takes to make the world better.
Politically, we bicker with Chavez’s Venezuela. A little rehearsal time in L.A. was lost because the visiting orchestra’s instruments were held up by U.S. Customs, which wanted to go through them with a fine-tooth comb.
But musically, Venezuela leaves no child behind, and the results are an inspiration to us all.
Demoledor unísono orquestal juvenil
Oct 30
Publicado originalmenten en LaJornada.com el 30 de octubre de 2007
El debut de la sinfónica que dirige Dudamel, entre lo más notable del Fórum Monterrey
Por: Pablo Espinosa
Monterrey, NL, 29 de octubre. Presenciar un concierto con Gustavo Dudamel al frente de la Orquesta Simón Bolívar de Venezuela es una de las experiencias máximas que por igual un experto que un escucha circunstancial disfrutan como una de las más intensas, electrizantes, conmovedoras, alegres, sublimes, inolvidables de toda una vida. Marcan impronta estos jóvenes en la flor de la vida, convertidos en un referente: la perfección técnica de esta orquesta, que comparte con las mejores del planeta, es el punto de partida para una explosión de energía, jolgorio, belleza y un rendimiento artístico fuera de serie.
Esta formación inusual de 220 músicos en escena hizo su debut en la capital nuevolonesa, como el capítulo más trascendental de una serie de actos de calidad enorme como parte del Fórum Monterrey. Ofrecieron un par de programas en el inicio de una gira que los llevará a Estados Unidos, pero antes a Guadalajara y estarán en la ciudad de México para un concierto único en Bellas Artes, el 15 de noviembre.
Según comentó Gustavo Dudamel a La Jornada, todo apunta hasta el momento a que tendremos el privilegio de escuchar en vivo en esa fecha próxima la Quinta Sinfonía de Mahler con estos jóvenes, que constituye el más reciente referente que tiene puesta de cabeza a toda Europa, pues se trata de una grabación, realizada bajo el sello Deustche Grammophon, reseñada en estas páginas hace unas semanas, que consagra a esta orquesta y a Dudamel en los primeros lugares de calidad, trascendencia y gozo musical en el mundo.
En Monterrey interpretaron en vivo, en tanto, el material de su primer disco bajo el sello alemán, que contiene las sinfonías 5 y 7 de Beethoven, versiones dotadas de una potencia que alcanza los niveles más brutales, enardecedores, dinamogénicos inimaginables.
El primer detonador de asombro es el número poco usual de ejecutantes, 220, lo cual implica, por ejemplo, una sección de 52 (¡!) violines, 20 violonchelos, seis trombones, 19 violas, una cantidad alucinante de metales y una sección crecida de alientos-maderas preñada de encanto con un sonido en plena ebullición.
Abreu, impulsor del proyecto musical
El factor Dudamel es definitivo: formado por su maestro, José Antonio Abreu, el gran ideador y artífice del proyecto musical que tiene a Venezuela sembrada de orquestas de niños y jóvenes, el estilo de Gustavo sobre el podio es devastador: dominio absoluto de la orquesta, precisión y equilibrio tanto en la mano de la batuta, la derecha, como la izquierda, la de los matices.
Vaya, es tan absoluto el control que tiene Dudamel sobre el sonido, que si bien sabemos que un buen director se reconoce porque el gesto que haga se escucha, se transforma en sonido, esto es que Dudamel cimbre su cuerpo y su larga melena afro estalla como un remolino de burbujas oscuras que retiemblan al igual que el piso tremola bajo el efecto de un unísono orquestal demoledor.
Y he aquí la magia de la Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar: sus jóvenes integrantes poseen tal dominio técnico sobre sus instrumentos que les permite reflejar su personalidad entera: tocan con ímpetu salvaje, sacan sonidos de sus instrumentos de manera casi épica, con un volumen asombroso, arremeten cada compás con una enjundia endiablecida pero, gran detalle, con una sensibilidad arrobadora, es decir: se trata de un alto contraste que desarma: el sonido es brutal, pero el efecto es dulce y delicado.
Por ejemplo, la sección de 20 violonchelos 20 suena como si fuera uno solo pero con un volumen impresionante, afinación perfecta y un embrujo fulminante. Las muchachas y los chavos parecen golpear con un hacha el puente de sus violonchelos, con mayor elegancia y fuerza aún que los finlandeses de la banda de violonchelo-rock Apocalyptica, que hacen versiones cuasi-sinfónicas de las rolas de Metallica.
Resultan una pálida sombra esos güeros finlandeses frente a las hermosas morenas y los apuestos morenazos venezolanos de la Orquesta Simón Bolívar, quienes le tunden durísimo a sus violonchelos pero, hay que insistir, lo que suena es de una exquisitez y una delicadeza que desmadejan al escucha.
Al final de sus conciertos, Dudamel y sus compañeros suelen quitarse el saco oscuro formal de concierto y se portan una chamarra con los colores de la bandera de Venezuela y empieza una segunda fiesta, la de las piezas de regalo, que aquí incluyeron una versión caribeña delHuapango, de Moncayo, un popurrí de temas populares venezolanos (Alma llanera, et al) y la repetición del Mambo que incluyó Leonard Bernstein en sus Danzas Sinfónicas de West Side Story: los muchachos venezolanos echando desmadre como en la secundaria, bailando en sus asientos, gritando ¡mambo! Llenando el mundo de alegría.
América Latina y el mundo están iluminados por un rayo de esperanza: Dudamel, la Orquesta Simón Bolívar y el sistema musical que ha puesto a Venezuela a la par civilizatoria que Europa. Un milagro cultural.
BBC Proms review: Was this the greatest Prom of all time?
Ago 24
Publicado originalmente en el Daily Telegraph el 24 de agosto de 2007
By Paul Gent
It was a night that anyone who was there will never forget. Yes, the Proms are renowned for their party atmosphere, particularly on the Last Night, but that’s from the audience. At the concert by the astonishing Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, it was the performers who let rip in what must have been the most joyful Proms performance ever.
The high jinks started at the end of the scheduled concert when they produced from nowhere jackets in the national colours to replace their immaculate suits. To cheering and stamping from the audience, they performed three increasingly wild encores.
They waved their instruments in unison, they stood up and sat down in time to the music, they performed Mexican waves, they threw their instruments in the air, spun their double basses and danced with each other. It was fiesta time.
Then they invaded the auditorium, and, as the last encore came to a raucous close, you realised the conductor had been replaced by one of the revellers. Finally, when the audience refused to stop clapping, the youngsters threw their multi-hued jackets into the crowd.
Yet that exuberant finale wasn’t the most impressive part of the concert. The first half consisted of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony – and the orchestra performed this powerful, harrowing work composed in the year of Stalin’s death with just as much commitment and sheer musicality as they gave to the fabulous Latin American rhythms of Moncayo and Ginastera.
They may have swayed a little more than the average European musician, but their discipline and precision were total.
The reason for this small miracle is Venezuela’s music education, known as El Sistema. Started in 1975 by the economist and musician José Antonio Abreu, it offers every willing child, no matter how poor, an instrument and free tuition. Currently, about 250,000 children take part.
The general manager of El Sistema, Javier Moreno, has said: “We’re interested in creating citizens with all the values they need to exist in society – responsibility, teamwork, respect, cooperation and work ethic.”
Put like that, it sounds slightly dull; the results, however, are anything but. At a cost of £15 million a year, the system has transformed the life chances of hundreds of children – some of them living on the streets – and has sparked a musical renaissance in the country.
One product of The System, double-bass player Edicson Ruiz, was snapped up at the age of 17 by Simon Rattle to bring swing to the Berlin Philharmonic. And another was the conductor on Sunday night, curly-headed 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel, already appointed as chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Now there is talk of Scotland adopting a similar system. A pilot project is about to start in Stirling, and there are hopes it will take off and be adopted more widely.
The UK is certainly in dire need of better music education – if you are poor the chances of becoming a classical musician are virtually non-existent. Instruments and tuition must be paid for, and classical music is an apologetic after-thought in most music lessons at school.
Meanwhile, the good-looking young men and women of Venezuela are a shining example of what can be achieved. This week they are in Germany. Let’s hope the Germans are in party mood.
La orquesta milagrosa
Ago 21
LOURDES GÓMEZ – Londres – 21/08/2007
Publicado originalmente en el diario El País
Tienen entre 14 y 26 años. Salieron de la calle y se apartaron de la delincuencia gracias a la música. El domingo pusieron en pie al exigente público de los Proms de Londres en una actuación apoteósica
“Fantástico”. “Soberbio”. “Nada igual”. “Deben volver”. La audiencia del concierto Proms número 48 (cita obligada de la música clásica en los veranos londinenses) no daba crédito al espectáculo que acababa de presenciar en el Royal Albert Hall. La noche del domingo, jóvenes y mayores salían del auditorio intercambiándose elogios. Fuera arreciaba la lluvia, pero muchos aguardaron en cola para saludar a las estrellas de la velada, el director Gustavo Dudamel y los 150 músicos de la Orquesta Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar. Los artistas cautivaron al siempre difícil público del más longevo y reputado de los festivales musicales del Reino Unido con un torrente de emoción, pasión y buen humor.
“Fantástica interpretación. Tocan con increíble entusiasmo, emoción y sentimiento. Y cosa rara en las grandes orquestas, estos chicos disfrutan tocando”, exclamaba Martin Dell, asiduo de los Proms. Bob y Martha Hanrott nada hacían para disimular su entusiasmo por el pelotón de artistas, veteranos intérpretes pese a su corta edad: el más joven tiene 14 años, y los mayores, incluido el director, 26.
La pareja británica vestía sendas cazadoras con el estampado de la bandera venezolana que los miembros de la orquesta lanzaron al público. Lo hicieron en un arrebato de histeria colectiva, al final del tercer y definitivo bis del concierto. Hasta entonces, y durante unos 20 minutos, el público aplaudió hasta rabiar, se puso en pie, y taconeó con fuerza el suelo del Albert Hall. Es una costumbre que los promers -los más fieles seguidores del festival- sólo ejercitan en contadas ocasiones. “Nunca había presenciado una reacción semejante”, aseguraba la publicista de la BBC, organizadora del centenario evento. “He visto respuestas entusiastas, pero nunca a este nivel”, escribía ayer el crítico del diario The Telegraph David Fanning.
Fanning se refería en concreto a la interpretación de la Sinfonía número 10 de Shostakóvich, que abrió el concierto. Descrita por el compositor ruso como “un retrato musical de Stalin”, la pieza fluye como un río de encontradas emociones que Dudamel transmitió con delicadeza, paciencia y energía más propia de un rockero que de un director de música clásica. “La emoción y energía de los muchachos es especial. Aman la música. Es imposible no conectar con ellos”, reconocía Dudamel después de la actuación.
La Sinfónica Simón Bolívar lleva unos 10 años tocando con su actual composición. Es el fruto más jugoso de un extraordinario programa social (el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela) fundado por el visionario José Antonio Abreu y auspiciado por los distintos gobiernos venezolanos desde mediados de los setenta. Conocido por su abreviación, el Sistema recluta a sus miembros entre los niños de la calle y adolescentes sin recursos económicos. De una Orquesta Juvenil de 11 músicos, que debutó en febrero de 1975, ha crecido hasta reunir bajo su órbita a 250.000 menores, con unas 200 orquestas en todo el territorio venezolano.
“Utilizamos la música como herramienta de rescate de la niñez y la juventud, para apartarlos de la droga y el crimen. Dedican sus horas libres a hacer música y aprenden valores que no encuentran en casa, en la calle, en la televisión”, explica en Londres Valdemar Rodríguez, subdirector ejecutivo del Sistema. Entre los valores menciona el trabajo en equipo, la solidaridad, la meritocracia y el esfuerzo personal.
“Entré en el Sistema con cuatro años. Aprendí a tocar el violín y, con 13, me decidí por el clarinete”, cuenta Rebeca Ascanio tras su debú con la Simón Bolívar en los Proms. Tiene ya 24 años y da conciertos en el extranjero desde los 17. “Estos chavales se divierten tocando y el placer que sienten al interpretar una pieza les ayuda a superar los inevitables nervios y la tensión de una actuación frente a una nueva audiencia”, reconoce Rodríguez.
No sólo los aficionados valoran la iniciativa del maestro Abreu. Simon Rattle, director de la Filarmónica de Berlín, la considera “un milagro” y el horizonte hacia el que debe aspirar “la música de todo el mundo”. “No sólo se trata de una cuestión de arte, sino de una profunda iniciativa social. El Sistema ha salvado muchas vidas y continuará salvándolas”, ha comentado el maestro de la batuta y abanderado de Dudamel.
Dicen que Plácido Domingo lloró al escuchar a la Simón Bolívar. Pavarotti y Montserrat Caballé también apoyan el programa. Y, entre otros, Claudio Abbado es un asiduo director invitado a las sesiones del Sistema.
El programa exporta su metodología fuera de Venezuela, ayudando a montar experiencias similares en una veintena de países. Las redes del Sistema se sienten en prácticamente toda América Latina y algunas regiones europeas. Una localidad de Escocia acaba de solicitar ayuda a los veteranos venezolanos. No les faltan recursos humanos puesto que el Sistema se nutre de una red de profesores, maestros y ejecutivos que años atrás formaron parte de las orquestas infantiles y juveniles.
“Yo fui un niño del Sistema”, recuerda su actual vicedirector ejecutivo. Rodríguez tocó con la que el llama la “vieja” Simón Bolívar. “La nueva”, dice en referencia a la que dirige Dudamel, “tiene más nivel, trabaja más y suena mejor”. “Cada chaval ensaya unas tres o cuatro horas diarias con su orquesta y muchas más por su propia cuenta. Por otro lado, cada niño recibe al menos una hora de clase individual con un profesor”, explica.
Rodríguez asegura que todos los gobiernos invierten “cada vez más” en el Sistema. La subvención estatal ronda hoy en torno a los 75 millones de dólares pero, según admite su vicedirector, “siempre necesitamos más”. La ayuda debe cubrir el mantenimiento de los núcleos de las distintas barriadas, los instrumentos, las 200 orquestas y las becas que se reparten entre los más necesitados. Los frutos son obvios. Entre los más visibles, están el propio Dudamel y el contrabajista Edicson Ruiz, quien, con 20 años, fue el más joven intérprete fichado por la Filarmónica de Berlín.
En Londres, Dudamel no dejó pasar la ocasión de honrar la herencia musical americana. Tras la amenazante, melancólica y dura sinfonía de Shostakóvich, aligeró el ambiente con West Side Story, de Bernstein, y tres sensacionales piezas latinas: Huapango, del mexicano Moncayo, inspirada en un baile tradicional que algunos enlazan con el fandango; Danzón número 2, del joven compositor mexicano Arturo Márquez, y Estancia, del argentino Ginastera. “Es importante traer a Europa nuestra música”, advierte el apasionado director.
Con la danza final del himno pampero, Malambo, la Simón Bolívar se despidió del Albert Hall brindando un genuino espectáculo de ritmo y movimiento. Se libraron de sus chaquetas negras y, enfundados en cazadoras con los colores de la bandera venezolana, músicos y director demostraron cómo se mueve una orquesta vibrante. Cerraron con éxito el capítulo londinense y con la mirada puesta en la serie de conciertos que darán este mes en diversas ciudades de Alemania. Porque como señala su director, quien se estrena en septiembre como responsable principal de la Sinfónica de Gotemburgo, y, en 2009, dirigirá la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles, “cada concierto es un reto”.
La batuta más brillante del Sistema
Gustavo Dudamel es la nueva estrella internacional, un director de orquesta destinado a comerse el mundo entero. Lleva una carrera prodigiosa, además de vertiginosa, desde que se unió de niño al Sistema en Barquisimeto, donde nació hace 26 años. La afición por la música le viene de su padre, un trombonista enamorado de la salsa, y de su abuela, que le encaminó hacia la música clásica. Debutó con el violín antes de dirigir su primer concierto cuando tenía tan sólo 14 años.
Dudamel es actualmente el director artístico de la Orquesta Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar y, el mes próximo, se estrena en su nuevo cargo como responsable de la Sinfónica de Gotemburgo, orquesta con la que debutó en los Proms londinenses el año pasado. Su fuerte conexión con los músicos, su brío y pasión con la batuta, le han asegurado otro papel de relieve: en 2009 se hará cargo de la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles, considerada entre las mejores orquestas de Estados Unidos. El nombramiento se anunció a principios de año, cuando Esa-Pekka Salonen, su predecesor, hizo pública su decisión de dejar la orquesta californiana.
Simon Rattle considera a Dudamel “el más increíble talento” de los directores de orquesta que se han cruzado en la larga trayectoria del maestro británico. Razón de ello, en el último año el joven director ha trabajado con la élite mundial, entre ellas la Sinfónica de Boston, la Sinfónica de Chicago, la Filarmónica Checa y la Philarmonia de Londres. También ha dirigido Don Giovanni en la Scala de Milán. “Cada concierto es un reto”, aseguraba en el Royal Albert Hall.
Dudamel hace lo imposible por introducir el repertorio tradicional y contemporáneo de Latinoamérica en sus conciertos internacionales. El domingo contrapuso a Shostakovich con tres compositores hispanos. “Son casi de la misma época, de la misma generación y aunque vienen de mundos distintos, música sólo hay una”, sentenció.
Simón Bolívar YO of Venezuela/Dudamel
Ago 21
Prom 48 Royal Albert Hall, London
Andrew Clements
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 21 2007 23.54 BST
Publicado originalmente en el diario británico The Guardian
I am not sure anything quite like Gustavo Dudamel and his extraordinary group of young musicians have ever hit the Proms before. Whatever you have read about the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra – and the astonishing Venezuelan system of musical education that brought it into being – can’t convey the brilliance and disarming exuberance of their playing, or the importance of Dudamel’s role in channelling that energy. There are some great youth orchestras around today, but none of them is as exciting to behold as this.
What seemed a slightly odd programme on paper – they had also played it at the Edinburgh international festival, two nights earlier – turned out to be perfectly judged in performance. Starting with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony allowed Dudamel to lay down his and his orchestra’s musical credentials right from the start. The long first movement was traced in a single, continuous arc, with beautifully moulded solo playing from the woodwind, and the scherzo started at a speed that seemed scarcely sustainable, though Dudamel and the orchestra did so without any sign of stress. Perhaps the slow movement did not plumb all the emotional depths some older conductors lay bare in the Tenth, but any lack of profundity was more than compensated for by the tension and drama generated elsewhere by the huge orchestra – woodwinds and utterly secure brass in fives and sixes, and battalions of perfectly disciplined strings.
After the interval, the focus switched to the Americas, beginning in New York with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story – how Leonard Bernstein would have loved to work with this orchestra! – and ending on the Argentinian pampas, with a suite from Alberto Ginastera’s ballet Estancia. In between, there were a couple of Mexican pieces, José Pablo Moncayo’s Huapango, and Arturo Márquez’s Danzon No 2, which made up in local colour and rhythmic excitement what they lacked in musical quality, and which gave the orchestra further chances to enjoy themselves. The emotional temperature rose steadily, and by the time of the encores, with conductor and orchestra now wearing jackets in the colours of the Venezuelan flag, waving their instruments in the air and promenading around the platform, everyone in the hall was on their feet.
Prom 48: Simon Bolivar NYO / Dudamel, Royal Albert Hall, London
Ago 21
Publicado originalmente en The Indepentent el 21 de agosto de 2007
By Edward Seckerson
It wasn’t just the promenaders who were on their feet at the climax of this sensational concert from Venezuela’s hottest and most inspiring export: the entire audience and orchestra were stomping to the furious beat of the Malambo from Ginastera’s Estancia.
By then, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra had shucked their sober jackets, donned the sunny national colours, and were spinning their instruments, doing Mexican waves, and threatening to lead the audience in a conga around the Albert Hall.
It was a joyous and edifying spectacle – the more so since many of these youngsters could so easily have ended up toting weapons instead of instruments. The programme of social action involving 250,000 young musicians across Venezuela puts us to shame. But its example radiates hope.
Gustavo Dudamel, the young superstar conductor of the orchestra, is a shining example of opportunity unlocking gifts. He began with Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, and it was probably the performance of the season so far. The energy that comes off these young players is astonishing. In the climax of the first movement, a tremolando up the octave in the first violins almost took my scalp off.
But it wasn’t just the all-out dynamism of the players that thrilled: it was their insight, too. Dudamel ensured that their collective quiet as much as their collective might spoke volumes for Shostakovich’s alienation in a time of terrible duress. The searching clarinet solos were almost autobiographical in their solitude.
And so it was again with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. One would have expected this orchestra to whack out the percussion and screaming mariachi trumpets of the Mambo, but what came as more of a revelation was the sweetness and tenderness of Bernstein’s ballads – and, in the carnival at the concert’s climax, the sheer sensuousness of the playing. Really, it was humbling.
Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Royal Albert Hall, London
Ago 20
Published: August 20 2007 18:05 | Last updated: August 20 2007 18:05
If anybody was uncertain about the colours of Venezuela’s flag before Sunday’s Prom, they certainly will not be now. To add a vibrant splash to the encores, the players of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra donned multi-coloured jackets, resplendent in Venezuela’s yellow, blue and red.
This has been a memorable Proms season for youth orchestras from around the world. Young string players from Soweto in South Africa set the opening weekend off with bravado, and this vast, more-than- 100-strong youth orchestra was hardly less exhilarating. In each case the background story of music lifting young people out of deprivation is inspiring on its own account.
In terms of the rising standard for youth orchestras, the Venezuelans may not occupy the world’s number one spot – that surely belongs to the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, hotly pursued by Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, made up of players from either side of the Middle Eastern divide – but they play extremely well and with vitality.
All the pent-up energy made the Royal Albert Hall’s foundations tremble. Unlike most other youth orchestras, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra has a young music director in 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel, guaranteed an international career as music director-designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The youthful combination was explosive.
Their performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 was conceived on a huge sonic scale. Dudamel made hard work of the long opening movement – the misery of the Russian masses weeps out of every note and performing it with such heavy accents and dogged tempos labours the message.
But as soon as dynamism was called for, the performance took off. The short scherzo was electric, like a bolt of lightning unleashed in the Stalinesque gloom.
The second half was a riot of colour, rhythm and dance. The symphonic dances from Bernstein’s West Side Story are perfect material for young players and went with infectious zest.
Dance and ballet numbers by Moncayo, Arturo Márquez and Ginastera gave us unbridled Latin American brilliance. Dudamel and his young Venezuelan band of musicians will be welcome back at the BBC Proms any time.
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Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
CBSO & Chorus/Oramo; LSO/Roth; Venezuelan Brass Ensemble/Clamor
Ago 20
Publicado originalmente en The Guardian el 20 de agosto de 2007
By Tim Ashley
Here we have one and a half Proms that were unforgettable. The “half”, perhaps, requires some explanation. A late-night concert, it was originally planned to allow Maxim Vengerov to play the UK premiere of Benjamin Yusupov’s Viola Tango Rock Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra. Vengerov withdrew, however, due to a shoulder injury, and potential cancellation was only averted when the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble, its members drawn from the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, agreed to appear alongside the LSO in an evening now billed as a “Latin American Fiesta”.
The LSO’s contribution, consisting of works by Copland and Piazzolla, was far from ideal. The conductor, replacing Yusupov, was François-Xavier Roth, whose frenetic twirling on the podium failed to elicit playing of comparable energy from the orchestra. The Brass Ensemble, however, with their conductor, Thomas Clamor, were phenomenal. The programme juxtaposed Latin American music, familiar or otherwise, with such rarities as Strauss’s Solemn Entrance of the Knights of St John, and everything – from the deadly serious to numbers we associate with Carmen Miranda – was done with unbelievable panache and astonishing virtuosity. Frenzy erupted when it was over.
The early concert – Elgar’s The Apostles, with Sakari Oramo conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus – was equally astounding. Oramo has always insisted on Elgar’s centrality in the European mainstream, rather than viewing him primarily as an English nationalist, a claim he has never, perhaps, made more forcefully. Solemn religiosity was replaced by transparent textures that rivalled Wagner and Strauss in their sensuous immediacy. Oramo stressed the point that this complex oratorio is as much about doubt as about faith, offsetting moments of mystic serenity with the psychological agony of Judas (James Rutherford) and the remorse of Mary Magdalene (Catherine Wyn-Rogers, on superb form).
The playing and choral singing were exceptional. Having long been an Elgar sceptic, I confess to being blown away, which is the highest complement I can pay it.
Proms 46 – 48: Joyous music-making in a class of its own
Ago 20
Daily Telegraph
Publicado originalmente en el diario británico Daily Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 20/08/2007
David Fanning reviews the CBSO, the LSO, The Venezuelan Brass Ensemble and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela conducted by Gustavo Dudamel
Share prices have been volatile of late, though if your portfolio includes Elgar, his performance has been rock-steady in the longer term, with a modest boost in this, his 150th anniversary year.
Sakari Oramo has played no small part in that, and his CBSO Prom was a welcome reminder of the sterling qualities of The Apostles, Elgar’s second oratorio. Here the dividends are admittedly undramatic and rather widely spaced, but patience is handsomely rewarded by the revelatory final pages.
The LSO is another classy and dependable performer, as its late-evening half-Prom, conducted by François-Xavier Roth, confirmed. The surprise here was the comparatively weak showing of Astor Piazzolla, especially as orchestrated by John Adams, where some fundamental musical limitations were laid bare.
His shares have been absurdly overpriced for years now, so the advice has to be: sell, sell, sell. The Venezuelan Brass Ensemble saved this Prom after Maxim Vengerov cried off with an injured shoulder. Those who stayed away missed a joyous display of panache and sensitivity in repertoire from Bach to Gershwin. It lasted nearly twice as long as scheduled, partly because of scene changes, but mainly because of prolonged ovations.
Speaking of which, I have witnessed some enthusiastic responses to Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, but nothing quite on the scale that greeted the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (of which the Brass Ensemble is a part) last night. And even that was over-topped by the reaction to their second half of (Latin) Americana.
Part of this rapture was directed at Gustavo Dudamel, the young superstar conductor who on this showing could hardly be priced too high. He is musical in every fibre of his body, and his Shostakovich was as profound and patient as his Mexican and Argentine second half was sparky and uninhibited.
Music-making this joyous is in a class of its own. If you hear of the orchestra coming within 500 miles of you, book straight away; they will probably sell out within minutes.
Apoteosis
Ene 4
Publicación original en el diario ABC Sevilla
4-1-2007 03:03:22
CLÁSICA
Festival Sevilla entre Culturas
Sinfónica Simón Bolívar. Solista Natalia Gutman, cello. Director Claudio Abbado. Obras Schumann, Tchaikovski. Teatro de la Maestranza. 02-01-07
JOSÉ LUIS LÓPEZ LÓPEZ
Ya hemos hablado de la Sinfónica Simón Bolívar (integrada en la organización mundial de Juventudes Musicales). Decíamos que esta formación puede con todo. Como demostración patente, en esta ocasión se enfrentó con dos obras del repertorio más romántico: una concertante y otra puramente orquestal. Si el día anterior fue conducida por el genial y precoz Gustavo Dudamel, en este ocupaba el podio el más grande, para este comentarista, Director vivo de hoy. Es impresionante la dignidad con la que Claudio Abbado desafía a los años y a la enfermedad: su infinita maestría y sensibilidad y su prodigiosa fuerza interior, plena de sabiduría, fascinan a los jóvenes de la Simón Bolívar, con los que ya ha trabajado en no pocas ocasiones; y lo mismo a los oyentes. Con la sala del Teatro llena, la primera parte nos mostró una Orquesta de dimensiones «normales» (80 o 90 músicos), saludada con alborozo, que ascendió a emocionado homenaje cuando apareció Abbado. El «Concierto para cello y orquesta en la menor» (1850) de Schumann consta de tres partes («No demasiado rápido», «Lento», «Muy vivo») que se encadenan sin interrupción. Compuesto como una liberación en el camino del autor hacia la locura final, no encontró esta vez en la excepcional cellista rusa Natalia Gutman esa intérprete total que esperábamos, aunque su labor fue correcta y meritoria. Sin embargo, la propina (de la «Suite nº 1 para cello solo, BWV 1007» de Bach) fue un dechado de limpidez y precisión. Director y Orquesta acompañaron impecablemente a la solista, sin taparla y dándole realce en todo momento. Pero la «locura» estaba por llegar: segunda parte, «Sinfonía nº 4 en fa menor. op. 36» (1877-78) de Tchaikovski. El genio mágico de Abbado guiaba a una Sinfónica (ahora con 150 o 160 miembros) de calidad excepcional: empaste, riqueza tímbrica, versatilidad, disciplina… Secciones sobresalientes, una por una; solistas fuera de serie en cada sección; y, todo sumado, un conjunto compacto, equilibrado, maleable hasta el límite ante las indicaciones del Maestro. El inicio, «Andante sostenuto», mostrado por los esplendorosos metales, con pasión exultante, nos llevó a unas alturas que, tal vez, nunca hemos alcanzado hasta este día, y de las que ya no bajamos hasta el final. El «Andantino», expresión de la angustia melancólica, cristalino como el hielo, nos oprimió el corazón y nos conmovió el espíritu. El «pizzicato ostinato» del «Presto», de arabescos caprichosos cercanos a la embriaguez, dibujados con una matización portentosa, seguido por la «chansonnette» y la marcha militar de los metales, nos preparó para el glorioso «Allegro con fuoco» final. Delirio desatado, paroxístico, con aplausos sin fin (¿cuantas veces salió a saludar Abbado? ¿Seis, ocho? Perdimos la cuenta…). Y como regalo, de nuevo la Obertura de «Guillermo Tell». Un hito en la historia musical de Sevilla.
Un vendaval
Ene 2
J. Á. VELA DEL CAMPO 02/01/2007
Publicado originalmente en el diario El País
La Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar es una orquesta de moda. En primer lugar, por ser la imagen simbólica de un proyecto educativo, social y político que tiene detrás nada menos que 265.000 niños y jóvenes. Luego está la figura de su director, Gustavo Dudamel, un pipiolo de 25 años, elogiado por Mehta, Abbado, Barenboim y Rattle. La orquesta y su director han sido invitados a tres programas diferentes en el próximo Festival de Pascua de Lucerna y también en 2007 van al Carnegie Hall de Nueva York de la mano de la Filarmónica de Berlín.
En Sevilla, Dudamel y sus muchachos se presentaron con un programa ecléctico y hasta enloquecido por momentos. No obstante, antes de empezar a hacer diabluras, expusieron un Concierto para orquesta, de Bartok, y La valse, de Ravel, en unas lecturas enjundiosas, llenas de fuerza, con el toque exacto de misterio, contrastadas y con una formidable sensación de tocar en equipo. Hasta Falla, especialmente en la segunda suite de El sombrero de tres picos, sonó con una componente orgiástica que suponía una revelación. De repente se apagaron las luces, y lo que parecía un accidente fue una excusa para un cambio de atuendo, y los músicos dejaron sus chaquetas oscuras en el respaldo de sus asientos y aparecieron -director incluido- con una especie de chándal con cremallera en rojos, amarillos y azules, y a partir de ahí empezó la fiesta. Los músicos empezaron a bailar con sus instrumentos y a girar sobre sí mismos y a tocar de pie, y es como si se les hubiese metido el diablo en el cuerpo, imponiendo un ritmo frenético a los mambos del cubano Pérez Prado y el estadounidense Leonard Bernstein, y consiguiendo el Rossini más delirante que uno pueda imaginar. El público se contagió con este alboroto, y sonaron a todo tren las palmas por bulerías. La alegría de hacer música se impuso a otro tipo de consideraciones. Y la fuerza de la juventud. El propio director acabó mezclado entre los percusionistas, mientras uno de estos cogía la batuta y otro sacaba una cámara fotográfica para fijar el momento. Dudamel y su orquesta arrasaron en Sevilla.
