Gustavo Dudamel conducts Mozart and Mahler
The young Gustavo Dudamel is famous for his sparkling energy, and in this concert he conducts works that are equally bursting with youthful spirit. First, there’s the Posthorn Serenade by 23-year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: jaunty and tight with splendid brass soli. Gustav Mahler, too, was only in his mid-20’s when he composed his First Symphony – a powerful, vernal start to a great career as a composer.
The Bamberger Symphoniker initiated the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004, and the first winner was Gustavo Dudamel. Since then, the rising star of the international music scene, born in Venezuela in 1981, has been building a career that is without compare. Thanks to his musical temperament, his orchestral conducting expertise and his personal charm, Dudamel not only acquired a reputation in no time at all as one of the hottest conductors of the younger generation, but has also won over greats such as Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Claudio Abbado to work with “his” orchestra: the Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan State Youth Orchestra “Simón Bolívar”.
A decade has passed since Gustavo Dudamel shone with Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony at the final concert of the first Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition. Conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom Dudamel, according to the Tagesspiegel, gave the “coolest” debut of all time in 2008 at a concert at the Waldbühne, Dudamel now presents his interpretation of Mahler’s first symphony. The programme also includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s so-called Posthorn Serenade K. 320. An interesting combination, given that both Mozart and Mahler reflect folk music traditions in their compositions to transcend the limits of traditional genres.
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