by Say what you will about El Sistema (and controversies over the political status and inner workings of the 50-year-old youth music program continue), but one thing remains clear: the wild energy of its flagship, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. At the first of two appearances at the Barbican as part of an anniversary European tour with music director Gustavo Dudamel, the stage was as full as the audience. Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 is his longest work, composed for a huge orchestra and whose musical ambitions are enormous.
In the orchestra’s hands, the score trembled and growled from the start. The string sound was almost airless in its density. Five clarinets – bells on – found something nightmarish in Mahler’s fanfare chirping. The first climax in the symphonic first movement was deafening, crowned by a cymbal crash of immense, shattering power. Dudamel drove the ensemble like someone who had to defend a Grand Prix title. The final chords of the movement had the vicious clarity of a guillotine blade.
Related: Venezuela’s Symón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra Turns 50: Is It Time to Throw Brickbats or Bouquets?
It was invigorating, exhilarating and captivating. It was also too much, too soon. The five remaining movements are shorter, but there is still an extraordinary distance left – and volume is not a gift that keeps on giving. Nor the intensity. Even the quietest passages were laden with the potential of a taut symphonic spring, ready to unfold at any moment. The minuet of the second movement was neurotically precise, its grace coming through as if through anxiously clenched teeth. (The atmosphere was infectious: a hint of applause at the end was angrily silenced.) Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa’s solo performance in the fourth and fifth movements brought real beauty of sound, but seemed to come from a different, lighter performance. The choral singing in the fifth was too often overwhelmed by the orchestra.
It wasn’t until the sixth set that there was finally some space. But the orchestra sounded exhausted, its sound quality and its ensemble faltering, before Dudamel brought it together for another incredibly loud sprint to the finish.
• The SBSO’s Barbican residency ends today. Both concerts are available on BBC Sounds.
