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I did not mean to go but last night at 6.30PM I looked again at the program and realized that they substituted the “selections of music from Latin America” to Beethoven 7 Symphony. That brought the concert into very different legion, making it very ambitious program:

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra
Beethoven 7
Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

It was an hour and a have before the consent and the Symphony Hall was just a few blocks away… The tickets were sold out but I got “from hands” a subscription ticker for $22 (!) with the best sit in house, at list at my very favorite sit – what a lack! So, I was in…

I have to admit that I love the  Selebrity Series concerts generally. A touring performers stop by in the city for one single concert and this facts has some influences for the performers and to the listeners.

http://www.celebrityseries.org/

So, the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and the Gustavo Dudamel…

Well, it was good concert and I very much appreciate that I went there. The last part of the concert, the prolong encore part, where the very large orchestra (52 first violins!!!) celebrated the instrumental youth, with the playing while dancing salsa on the stage and throwing the instilments into air  was a fun to watch, throw it has little to do with music itself. Still, as the national orchestra celebratory event it was kind of appropriate and quite tastefully performed.

The sound of Orchestra is very interesting. I happened to have for a while all 3 recordings of the orchestra and I knew what to expect – still live they sound better. The most distinctive quality of this orchestra is absolutely fantastic reliability of the Orchestra played together. There was some very quick bond between the players in the section and between the sections and the entire, very large orchestra sounds like a very niclsy oiled machine. During the whole program, long and complex program, there was practically no bloopers or significant mistake, everything was very nicely balanced – very uncommonly seen in the Symphony Hall of the damn BSO. It was very disciplined and perfectly measured, perfectly evangelistic orchestral play – perhaps even too perfect. I think the reasoning is that the members of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela did not starters like most of the musicians their careers in solo practices and learn instilments and music already playing in the orchestra’s section – looking and listing each other and coordinating this play with others… The result was very obvious – the phenomenally integrated orchestral sound.

Was anything else worth to mention positively? Nope, it was it, as the music that the Orchestra made was quite tedious. With all positive intention of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela there was a lot that they did not have. The players did not have charm and charisma. The leads of the sections had no class and allure. The instruments had low quality of Absolute Tone. The conductor’s reading of the program was dull and very unthrilling. The consent was a perfect exercise of the notes rendering and hardly became a musical event.

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was probably the most boring I even heard – and it is very simple to male me to be bored with this price – I do not like it generally. Two weeks ago the same Simon Bolivar played it with LA and it was much different. The Venezuelains did it with no excitement or enthusiasm at all. The Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony nicely played by horribly interpreted. It made the Symphony very simplistic, unsophisticated and very primitive. Many nuances of the Beethoven’s might were completely overlooked. Simon Bolivar in Beethoven compressed the range of the orchestra, never went soft, never pronounced any phrase with fine precision or sophistication. It was kind of McDonald’sd cooked Beethoven – I did not like it at all. The Bernstein’s West Side Story was a piece more suited for Orchestra. I do not like much about this music but in context of that jazzy and snappy “Musiciana of Americana” the Orchestra sounded more “alive” and a little more exiting.

It was not much different that what I expected. Still it was a good lesson for up Bostonians how a bunch of the Venezuelain kids overplayed the snobby and overpaid BSO’s hoodlums. I hope the member of BSO were there and had a chance to learn… Now, what I would like to hear would be James Levine warming his hands on the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela…

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