The second half featured well-known American artists. Following Adams’s “absolutely terrifying experience”, we were treated to the lovely impressionistic tone poem by the Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez, Mediodìa en el Llano,” Midday on the Prairie” ( 1942 ). Dudamel and his younger musicians rendered it great, stable and still, with a haunting ambient “love of house” experience, emphasizing the distinction between the tender melody rising in the strings and the more brooding, textured response from the earthier instruments. Dynamics evoked something like the perpetual self-replenishing of the llanos, as the piece welled up to a zealous climax bearing a special solo violin voice, melancholy, determined and already substantially desolate, which saved it from falling into empty sentimentality.
Dudamel added an unexpected element to the program, asking the performers to stand up and sing. The goal was to honor José Antonio Abreu, the composer and founder of El Sistema and a composer in his own right, while also showcasing the voices of the musicians. We heard a perfectly beautiful madrigal, followed by a religious hymn, designed for a standard Catholic mass,” Gloria in excelsis deo”, also beautifully pitched and interpreted.
Dudamel then turned his attention to Albert Ginastera’s Four Dances from Estancia, an orchestral suite created by Lincoln Kirstein’s American Ballet in 1942, back to pure flash and fun. The first movement dance Los trabajadores agricolas was vigorously muscular, exhibitionistic, edgy and collectivistic, contagious and slightly coarse. ( Flash is fun! Flash is good! Maybe substance is overrated? Perhaps employees only want to enjoy themselves once or twice? A lyrical flute interacted with a number of instrumental timbres in the second movement dance, Danza del trigo (” Dance of the Wheat” ), evoking a persistent desire to survive ( could it be that workers only want to feed themselves and their families )? The ensuing scherzo-like third movement dance, Los peones de hacienda, featured superbly brisk and exuberant timpani, rambunctious, chaotic and dirty — more Lenny Bernstein than Aaron Copland. Dudamel infused the 4th movement finale dance, Malambo, with a frenetic mirth, again harnessing flash and fun to defy hunger, fatigue, pain, despair. The brass section began to sway back and forth while playing the Malambo contagiously, bouncing up and down in high gear, and moving around the orchestra like a giant fiesta. Perhaps all kids just want to have fun? Perhaps they simply want to forget how horrible things are every day? Perhaps the substance is overblown, neurotic and morbid?
But if Flash and Fun replace Substance, how on earth will these youngsters tackle Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5? Dudamel’s answer, while highly original, cannot be dismissed out of hand: he turned it into movie music, into Show-Biz! Since Dmitri was chastised by a homicidal tyrant for engaging in “formalism” and told to compose in the Soviet-sponsored” social realist” style, maybe he wrote a parody of the sort of film score that accompanies Eisenstein’s epic films? A dramatic, theatrical first movement with emphasis on epic narrative rather than inner states of soul was created by Dudamel’s young musicians. The effect was immediately captivating, rather than reflective — escapist in the best sense rather than introspective. No heart-pounding in this harps concert was captured by Orianna Rojas and Sophia Cisneros on the harps! Maybe kids just want heroes, success, stories?
Sarcasm and angst were removed from the second movement’s scherzo. The vigorous opening cellos, playful flutes and charming violin solo conveyed a circus-like atmosphere reminiscent of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastisque and of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf – pure escapism, pure fun. Show Biz is magic! Dudamel’s idiosyncratic reading turned the usually interiority-wrenched third movement largo, the heart and center of the symphony, into Hollywoodesque romance and sunset, descriptive and mesmerizing rather than angst-laden and profound. Maybe kids want to read romantic love stories that make them believe in happiness and hope. Perhaps letting go of” tragedy” through fiction on the big screen makes us believe it will all come to an end? Dudamel might understand social realism and explain why it is preferred by dictators.
The 4th movement embarked on a mad flight, fully allegro, a race of high strings and brass full of celebratory fireworks. When the mood came to an end, meditative strings and comforting brass helped bring the strings and harps together, bringing hope back. Although Dudamel provided the intensity and flashes and glitter of the “happy ever after” endings, the climax was led at a slower pace. Perhaps we undervalue the Show Biz’s obvious immediate impact when it comes to Fun and Flash?
Venezuela is not in a good place, and it has not been for a while. Dudamel’s goal is” to transform lives through music,” he once stated right away. Yes, he may have found a compromise with the devil, but when we hear and see these talented young musicians, we suspend our judgment. What would be their fate without Dudamel’s commitment to El Sistema? Dudamel has effectively saved 170 teenagers from the streets and famine, much like a Pied Piper who aspired to save children from a burning city through deception and magic. If he could, in my opinion, would double the size of the orchestra.
Leon Golub, an astrophysicist at the Cambridge Center for Astrophysics, has been a classical music enthusiast for more than 50 years.