Last month I praised the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela’s CD of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Three more items have now come to hand from the same lineup, and they’re all of great, even overwhelming, interest.
The DVD entitled The Promise of Music consists of a film about this extraordinary orchestra at work at home in Caracas, culminating in their trip to Bonn, Germany to perform in the 2007 Bonn Beethoven Festival. There they play Beethoven’s Third Symphony (Eroica), and that complete performance then follows as a separate item, doubling the length of the DVD.
The most interesting thing you learn is that Venezuela’s ambitious music-education system involves teaching young children instruments as, from the very beginning, members of an orchestra. They are effectively taught en masse. Thus in one scene you hear a hall full of youthful instrumentalists blowing and scraping away to hideous effect. What on earth’s going on, you wonder. Eventually you realize that what they are trying to play is Land of Hope and Glory!
But the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra itself is a very different matter. This represents the cream of a quarter of a million students. And it really does make you wonder if the adage that the future of classical music itself lies, not in Europe or the US (where most of the young typically haven’t listened to this sort of music for almost half a century) is true. If Asia and South America really do represent the future of classical music, the only significant difference would appear to lie in the stronger female presence here (in Taiwan, anyway), whereas the Venezuelan team looks to be more weighted towards the male.
Insights are provided by extensive interview material with one of the orchestra’s drummers (and his brother), as well as with conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his family. It’s remarkable how God, country and family feature prominently in these young people’s minds and feelings — all three attitudes very characteristic of traditional societies, but all markedly on the wane in so-called “advanced” countries.
The Beethoven performance receives a rapturous reception in Germany. After the tension leading up to the concert — the principal flautist has to withdraw following an upset stomach — the outburst of joy from the Venezuelans is manifestly real. Of course it had been rehearsed, but when they don their national colors, and then virtually dance while playing a malamba by Alberto Ginastera, the happiness was clearly genuine, and not confined to the orchestra. The future, in some sense, (or so the optimists must have felt) was being born.
The following year, 2008, the Venezuelans appeared at the ultra-prestigious Salzgurg Festival. The video recording of this, by Agnes Meth, is even finer than that of the Eroica. The suavely handsome Venezuelans are highlighted against often very dark backgrounds, and the cutting between instrumentalists, closely following the music, is outstanding. They first play Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, with the two Capucon brothers, plus Martha Argerich, back at Salzburg after 14 years.
As if this wasn’t magnificent enough, they then play Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and no music could suit them better. Ravel orchestrated this piece in the early 20th century, using many unusual instruments and creating an electrifying sound-picture. For it the Venezuelan orchestra was expanded, with 14 double basses, and a brass section stretching as far as the eye can see. Novel sound sensations are what Dudamel often aims for, and frequently achieves, and this particular live performance seems to me the peak of the Simon Bolivar orchestra’s recording career so far.
The Radetzky March follows, with the orchestra beginning even before Dudamel has reached the podium.
This veritably orgiastic occasion is followed by a documentary of Dudamel conducting, and frequently stopping to comment on, Mahler’s First Symphony. Speaking in English, he’s funny, enthusiastic and invariably dynamic. This Live From Salzburg DVD is even more enjoyable than The Promise of Music, and that’s praise indeed.
This orchestra is inevitably now firmly established in all classical-music enthusiasts’ hearts. It represents everything they had hoped for, that this music doesn’t have one foot in the grave at all, but is instead being reinvigorated from unexpected quarters, and most importantly by the young from those quarters. The Venezuelan experiment may be unique at the moment but, as Dudamel comments, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be emulated all over the world.
The third item from this orchestra is a CD of Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh symphonies. This has all the qualities the DVDs lead you to expect. Even so, it has to be admitted that seeing them in action on DVD does add a valuable, even a crucial, dimension. Both DVDs reviewed here have Chinese subtitles, by the way.
Lastly, WellGoUSA in Taiwan has now issued its three DVDs entitled All the Russias: A Musical Journey (featuring Russian music and its relation to Russian nature, religion and history, presided over by Valery Gergiev) in a boxed set retailing at NT$800. It’s five films, running at a total of 300 minutes. All three individual items were extravagantly praised in this column, and this collected edition consequently represents outstanding value.
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