The evening of Obama’s State of the Union address two weeks ago, Dudamel led his home team Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Mahler’s 3rd. 175 of them! It was a wild sight seeing row after row of violin bows flying.
The monster first movement is the most Mahlerian, for me: an Alpine landscape with a funeral happening over here, a wedding happening over there, an army marching off to battle over there, an adolescent poet having a nervous breakdown yonder, etc. Not quite sure what it all adds up to, but it’s full of lovely strange sounds. The first trombone ruled. Also the big, deep drum.
The thirty minutes were not tiresome, but rather comfortable. It expressed generosity. He was giving us space to breathe, time to think.
There was a literal landscape effect in the third movement, with a Bolívar trumpeter blasting a fluegelhorn from the back corner. It was brilliant, beautiful, and eerie. Whenever the tooting started to emerge from behind the balcony, the couple next to us got agitated. Did they think horses and dogs would come racing in?
The fourth movement was lovely and the fifth was cheerful, but they seemed willfully extravagant. Bringing out mezzo Christianne Stotijn just to exclaim “O Mensch!” and chorus of women and children to chime “Ding, dong”? Then they had to sit patiently till the end, looking like Joe Biden sitting behind Obama earlier that evening, with an expression of “silent but heartfelt engagement.”
“Extravagant”? Just wait till the 8th ….
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