Gustavo Dudamel conducts Mahler's Fifth

The young Argentinian conductor (he's turning 28 in two weeks) drew a committed performance from the orchestral players last night. The performance was impassioned yet cogent. The opening funeral-march movement was massive and moving. The slow movement, the famous Adagietto, shimmered with tenderness. A massive, multi-layered work, the symphony has five movements organized in three parts: 

Part 1: Funeral March: With measured step. Strict. Like a Cortege
xxxxxxStormily. With greatest vehemence

Part 2: Scherzo. Vigorously, not too fast.

Part 3: Adagietto. Very slow
xxxxxxRondo-Finale. Allegro giocoso. Lively


Though fiendishly complex, it seemed last night all of a piece from beginning to end, its unity that of a scale of emotions. 

Before the Mahler, Pinchas Zukerman played Violin Concerto, Op. 30, written by Oliver Knussen (b. 1952) for him. 


Comments

Christopher Willard said…
Interestingly enough, and true, was the fact Leonard Bernstein believed himself to be the reincarnation of Mahler. Cool little thing to know if you're into the composer.
11:59 PM
Jee Leong said…
Interesting. I am listening to Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and enjoying the work very much.
6:51 AM
Anonymous said…
Really? If one died in 1911 and the other was born in 1918: what happened to the musical soul in between? There's a poem to be composed ;-) If Bernstein was the reincarnation of Mahler...as a hypothesis...what a downward trend. Where next? A 1990 pop star?
9:25 AM
Jee Leong said…
The musical soul resided in a child prodigy who died, at the age of seven, in WWWI.
6:51 PM
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