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Bartók and Tchaikovsky: Simón Bolivár Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel. Royal Festival Hall, London, 14.4.2009 (CC) 

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4 in F minor, op.36


There were lines of chairs in place for those awaiting returned tickets prior to this concert. The Festival Hall was abuzz with expectation for an orchestra that is the living embodiment of hope in these troubled times. Venezuela’s visionary training method – the so-called “El Systema”, a social programme that teaches music to chronically underprivileged youngsters regardless of financial circumstances – is a model for a new world order that has yet to arrive. The players are living examples of a glowing hope that beams all the brighter in these recession-torn times.

This was the first of the orchestra’s two concerts (the second takes the hall by storm on Saturday and includes Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring). The orchestra is huge. There was hardly a spare square foot of space on the RFH stage. Over 40 violins ensured that tone, and tonal heft, was not lacking, while twelve granite-like double-basses seemed to connect with the Earth Mother herself. The amazing thing is that even with these numbers, pizzicati were routinely, preternaturally, together, more so than from any professional orchestra I have ever heard. The programme was carefully chosen. Just two works, both, on the surface, orchestral showpieces. And so in general they remained, as if in tribute to the spirit of the evening.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, a Koussevitsky commission, contains huge amounts of virtuoso challenges for the orchestra. Crucially, it also includes significant sections of interior searching. While the SBYO excelled in the former, it was somewhat lacking in the latter. Even this was mitigated by the sheer togetherness of it all. The very opening, ultra-disciplined, pitted nocturnal grumblings against the anguish of the upper strings and featured a perfectly judged accelerando from Dudamel. Running through all of this was what can possibly be best described as a ferocious enthusiasm fed by an equally incendiary curiosity. The depth of the string sound was easily matched by the voluminous brass. Interpretatively, it was interesting to hear Dudamel steer the Shostakovich quote of the Intermezzo more towards the vocabulary of a Stravinsky; musically, it was the finale that swept all before it, its white-hot energy refusing to flag, with pastoral pipings leading to a staggering climax. Remarkable.

The angst of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony was projected by these young people as a fist-clenched challenge to Fate. The remarkable unanimity from all departments manifested in both tender affection and frenzied build-ups to shattering climaxes. Woodwind solos revealed some of the most talented youngsters anywhere – bassoon and oboe were the two soloists that shone the brightest. The final movement was Dudamel’s finest moment as here he cruelly juxtaposed sections – essentially, plateaux – against each other mercilessly, eschewing inserted breathing spaces. This meant the energy just grew and grew so that the huge gesture of the return of the work’s opening made full, heart-stopping effect.

Encores were inevitable. The lights went off, as the orchestra donned their characteristic colourful jackets and the encores began. Just two – Ginastera (Estancia) and Bernstein West Side Story but they were more a party in music than concert pieces, and all the more effective for it. Instruments were recklessly thrown into the air or dizzyingly twirled. Finally, those jackets, each a blaze of colour in its own right, were thrown out to the audience in a symbolic gesture of unity, friendship and generosity. As if they hadn’t been generous enough, musically.

Colin Clarke


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