Say what you will about El Sistema (and controversies continue over the political status and inner workings of the 50-year-old youth music programme), but one thing remains unequivocal: the ferocious energy of its flagship Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. For the first of two performances at Barbican as part of an anniversary European tour with its music director Gustavo Dudamel, the stage was as packed as the auditorium. Mahler’s Symphony No 3 is his longest work, scored for a massive orchestra and its musical ambitions sprawl weightily.
In the orchestra’s hands, the score quivered and growled from the get-go. The string sound was almost airless in its density. Five clarinets – bells up – found something nightmarish in Mahler’s fanfaric chirruping. The first climax in the symphony-length first movement was deafening, crested by a cymbal crash of immense, shattering force. Dudamel drove the ensemble like someone with a Grand Prix title to defend. The movement’s final chords had the vicious clarity of a guillotine blade.
