United Kingdom Bernstein and de Falla: Javier Perianes (piano), Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela / Gustavo Dudamel (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 28.8.2025. (AV-E)
Bernstein – Overture, Candide; Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
de Falla – Nights in the Gardens of Spain for Piano & Orchestra; The Three-cornered Hat, Suite No.2
The sell-out Royal Festival Hall concert opened with Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide which was played by the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela with enthusiastic panache and aplomb giving the players a chance to show off their carnivalesque colours.
This was followed by the nocturnally evocative Nights in the Gardens of Spain for Piano & Orchestra by Manuel de Falla. The serenely scented tone of Spanish pianist, Javier Perianes, was perfectly integrated with the orchestral players whose diverse versatility adopted the appropriate dusk to dawn tone and mood.
Here the SBSO antiphonal violins played with a subterranean serenity through which one could almost smell the scent of the night whose eeriness was given extra weight, darkness and depth by the ten double basses. Indeed, the bass players were amongst the very finest that I have ever heard in any symphony orchestra and, shamefully, they put some of our London ones to shame.
As an encore, Perianes gave us a rather over the top ‘no holds barred’ rendition of de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance which aroused a woman seated to my right to shout out loud:’¡Olé!’
De Falla’s Picassoesque The Three-cornered Hat, Suite No.2 gave the chance for SBSO to show-off the elegant finesse of their virtuosic string tone (which is also so sadly lacking sometimes amongst our London orchestras). Dudamel paced the first two movements at a far broader pace than usual with a Celibidache concentration where the solid body of strings took on an earthy weightiness and invigorating attack.
After the exuberant second movement, the audience broke into spontaneous applause, whilst in the concluding movement, the exhilarating flamboyance of their playing brought the house down.
Bernstein’s seductive Symphonic Dances from West Side Story were tailor-made for the SBSO who were in their elating element emphasising the jazz elements of the score in sounding spontaneous and playing with a vivacious vitality. In the Prologue, percussionists played with such versatile vinosity and a suave style.
In the ’Somewhere’ dream episode the evanescent strings played so tenderly and lovingly yet never sounded sentimentalised. This manically mesmerising performance was vastly superior to Bernstein’s own recording of the Symphonic Dances with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; not unsurprisingly, then, that Dudamel had been nicknamed ‘Latin Lenny’ (as well as ‘The Dude’).
Yet again, the audience exploded into raptures of applause giving the SBSO and Dudamel a standing ovation followed by three encores, including the Johann Strauss II’s Tritsch-Tratsch Polka goes Mambo by the Venezuelan composer, Paul Desenne. These world-renowned encores of the SBSO now constitute the main meat on the menu of any of their performances.
Whilst the now 50-years-old Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra is no longer a ‘youth orchestra’ they are certainly blessed with an eternal youth as a life-enhancing and joy-celebrating entity that now ranks as one of the top symphony orchestras in the world today.
I just hope and pray that they never become straitjacketed into the current deeply depressing fashion of ‘historically informed performance’ practice with those wiry watered down etiolated strings: I for one have always preferred ‘big band’ Bach, Handel, Haydn and Beethoven! Let the world-class Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra remain a big band!
Alexander Verney-Elliott
Featured Image: Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra © Sisi Burn
You were at a different concert than the one I and The Times newspaper reviewer attended then. Although there was indeed sound and fury from the audience, it all arose from rampant nationalism – vast numbers of them clearly being Venezualan themselves. As for the music, Spanish Gardens meandered and fiddled along, more like a film noir score from the the ’30s; de Falla broke into flames a couple of times, but didn’t really work; and the Bernstein was great when the orchestra were flying along at full chat – but when they had to play more softly and quietly they simply didn’t have much to offer – even with some parts of the orchestra noticeably out of time with other parts during them. One magical quiet part was ‘One hand, one heart’, but ‘Somewhere’ was definitely not where we were, wherever it was. In general, there was enough for it to be an enjoyable evening – but much of that was caused by national fervour and the excitement that can bring rather than by staggeringly good playing.