Gustavo Dudamel / Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela MAHLER 5

Gustavo Dudamel's rise to fame has been rapid, and his exceptional abilities have been extolled by musicians and critics alike; figures as prominent as Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, and Claudio Abbado have praised his conducting, and he has been the subject of numerous glowing articles in the media, notably Time Magazine and The New York Times. So how does this youthful Venezuelan conductor fare in his 2006 recording of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor? Due to its phenomenal popularity, this piece has become an acid test for conductors everywhere, and recording it has practically become de rigueur, so Dudamel faces a great deal of competition from the myriad recordings on the market. Yet he makes his version with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela noticeable in three important ways. First, he freely shapes the music with an elastic sense of phrasing, using a great deal of rubato in the service of Mahler's wide mood swings, apparently in an attempt to stay true to the spirit of the music, if not necessarily its letter. Secondly, Dudamel's approach is quite dramatic and sweeping, and his prolongations of gestures for dramatic effect and distinctive scene-painting make the symphony feel cinematic, almost as if Mahler had composed it to accompany a film. Third, the orchestra shows high energy and volatility, signs that Dudamel has inspired it to a high level of enthusiasm and bravura playing. All this is good to an extent, as far as flexibility, theatricality, and excitement always work in performances of Mahler's Fifth. However, there are perhaps too many distinctively shaped moments, as if Dudamel has played with moods and effects too much, and not paid sufficient attention to ensemble cohesion, pacing, and significant details in the orchestration that must be drawn out. One may get the feeling that he tried too hard to make this performance stand out from all the rest, and in the process delivered a Fifth that doesn't really hold together through its internal logic, but depends far too much on the conductor's whims and personality. This CD may appeal to some uncritical Mahler fans, but since there are many better recordings, don't let it be the only one you hear. (Blair Sanderson)

Gustavo Dudamel /Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela RITE Stravinsky - Revueltas

“There is inside me a very peculiar understanding of nature", the Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas once wrote. “Everything is rhythm. That's what music is to me. My rhythms are booming, dynamic, tactile, visual. I think in images that move dynamically." There could hardly be a better description of Revueltas's La noche de los Mayas or of Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps, the two works in Gustavo Dudamel's new recording with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

“All these dances have a youthful energy", says Gustavo Dudamel. “Spring reflects a new beginning, something important to young people. I've known the Sacre since my first concert as a thirteen-year-old violinist in my hometown orchestra. Now it's also an important piece for the SBYOV. We first played it in 2009 in London, Madrid, Lisbon and, of course, several times in Venezuela. This orchestra simply have these rhythms in their blood - they even make one passage sound like heavy metal."
Powerful dance rhythms also dominate Revueltas's music for a 1939 film about the cultural clash between a tribe of Mayans and the modern world. Like Stravinsky's great ballet, the symphonic suite La noche de los Mayas is evocative, ritualistic music, and it ends with a wild sacrificial dance calling for elevenpercussionists. “It makes a perfect coupling for the Sacre", exclaims Gustavo Dudamel. And this explosive, mysteriously atmospheric coupling makes aperfect program for the most dynamic conductor and young musicians in the world today. (Deutsche Grammophon / 2010)

Gustavo Dudamel / Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela FIESTA

Recording a selection of Latin American pieces after a Beethoven and a Mahler disc is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Indeed, for Gustavo Dudamel the distance between Beethoven and the Venezuelan composer Carreño is only as great as a dance step. “My father played in a salsa group," he remembers, “so I started to dance when I was really small - a baby. You know, learning to dance is part of our culture - dancing is in our blood ... Latin music is all about dance, about rhythm. And we try to put this spice into all of our music. With Mahler - the second movement of the Fifth Symphony is so full of energy - or the last movement of Beethoven 7, or the first movement - there is a feeling of dance."

It was logical, then, that Dudamel's third recording for Deutsche Grammophon would be a disc of Latin American music. “Often in a concert we will play a Beethoven or Mahler symphony, but in the first half we might perform Castellano and Ginastera. To us, there is a close connection, because music is first of all energy and movement. Mahler and Beethoven are important, but it's also important to have the opportunity to present our own music. For this recording we decided to choose small pieces by different composers, to show the beauty of Latin American music. We created a little mosaic of the best. It's like a party, a fiesta."
Dudamel's selection includes four Venezuelan composers, two Mexicans and an Argentine. Leonard Bernstein's spirited Mambo, a nod to Latin exuberance from the North, which the Venezuelans have made their own, rounds off the collection. (Shirley Apthorp 3/2008)

Here is confirmation of a pulsating talent and, perhaps, a glimpse of the future. Dudamel's charisma beats through every bar of this scintillating survey of Latin American music. His Venezuelan players . . . play as if their hearts are fit to burst with pride as well as passion. And they sound magnificent, textures sharp and clean, driven on with rhythmic momentum. It's an enormous orchestra and at full-throttle the sound they make is awe-inspiring . . . I couldn't believe what I heard -- the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra's percussion section strike up the band with the swing, push and individuality of a dozen great jazz drummers and the brass section riff like they're plugged into the Venezuelan national grid. The visceral impetus with which Dudamel plants firecrackers under his orchestra outplays anybody else -- out-Lennying Lenny even -- who has approached the piece. It's that good, completely unheralded in fact . . . their rhythmic nous and heightened melodic expressivity override the longueurs . . . inevitably it's the infectious hardcore Latin spirit that, once sampled, stays embedded in your imagination.

Record Review / Philip Clark, Gramophone (London) / 01. August 2008

. . . it's a stirring collection of strong, moving works resounding to a tropical beat . . . the amazing, 27-year-old Dudamel, who catches the throb of this mighty, slashing music and passes it on to the equally extraordinary youngsters of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra . . . has honed his youthful charges to a responsiveness, a sheen in the string tone, an ebullience in the winds and brass, that elevate the Bolivar to a level far above any youth band in recent memory . . . Inherent in the new disc, therefore, are multiple levels of pride. Consider first the triumph of the young conductor and the orchestra he has developed out of the cream of Venezuela's youthful talent. Consider then their music: the rhythms and orchestral colors of composers nurtured on these homelands, carving a musical language from beloved surroundings. Consider finally the man in charge, diminutive, dimpled, a phenomenally talented bearer of the message of rebirth for this whole business of classical music.

Record Review / Alan Rich, Bloomberg.com / 01. August 2008