Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra/Dudamel

Gustavo Dudamel returns to the hall at the head of his ‘other’ orchestra: the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. There’s just one work, but Mahler’s mighty Symphony No 3 is a stand-alone masterpiece.

Famously, Mahler told Sibelius that a symphony ‘must be like the world: it must embrace everything’. And what a world is embraced by his Symphony No 3! The longest of Mahler’s symphonies it’s also one of the most ambitious. From the fruity 8-horns opening as Pan awakes, to the radiant love-infused finale described by one critic after the premiere as ‘perhaps the greatest adagio since Beethoven’, it’s a work of bold contrasts, exquisitely imagined colours, and all-consuming passions. Little wonder that after the first performance a 15-minute ovation recalled Mahler to the podium a dozen times.

French mezzo Marianne Crebassa ‘is truly a revelation’ insists Die Weld, while for the Los Angeles Times, ‘the overpowering grandeur of Dudamel’s Mahler Third is ultimately and irresistibly Utopian’.

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This performance will end at approximately 9.30pm. Please note there will be no interval.

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Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra/Dudamel

Mahler 3

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