Grooving with The Dude: the Bolívars make Bernstein and Falla dance

Remember the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra’s Proms debut in 2007 when, after Shostakovich 10, they let their hair down with Latin-American favourites, twirling their double basses and grooving to the Mambo from West Side Story? They donned jackets in the colours of the Venezuelan flag which they then hurled out to gleeful audience members. I spotted two of those jackets in the Royal Festival Hall this evening, treasured mementos. 

The Bolívars are the most high profile product of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education programme. They shed their youth orchestra status in 2011, but it seems impossible that the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra has already reached the age of fifty. That’s largely because they only really touched international radars two decades ago when they were led by a charismatic young conductor: Gustavo Dudamel. Big gigs and a big recording contract followed. The Los Angeles Philharmonic – and a Hollywood Walk of Fame star – beckoned for “The Dude”, who next year takes up the New York Phil. 

In the Big Apple, Dudamel follows in the footsteps of Leonard Bernstein and it was “Lenny” who topped and tailed this programme, launched with a zippy Candide overture. In between came Manuel de Falla whose Spanish rhythms played to the Bolívars’ strengths in the three dances that constitute the second suite from The Three-Cornered Hat. The fierce unanimity of their string attack, underpinned by ten double basses, impressed, as did the arresting horn solo that opened The Miller’s Dance. The final Jota whipped the audience into a frenzy, whooping and cheering that usually signal the end of a programme. 

The orchestra has less to do in Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a not-quite-concerto with piano obbligato. It’s strong on atmosphere – you could almost scent the jasmine on a sultry Andalusian evening – but short on virtuosity. Javier Perianes provided sensual delicacy as we wandered the gardens around the Alhambra and he hit the guitar-like repeated notes with precision, but the work is so apologetic that many hadn’t realised the piece had ended until Perianes rose from his seat to embrace Dudamel. As if desperate to show some Spanish heat, Perianes swiftly offered an encore, the Ritual Fire Dance, which suitably sizzled. 

This concert comes midway through a London residency where the Bolívars are playing Wembley as the support act to Coldplay, with 90,000 at each gig rocking to the Mambo. And it was the Bernstein that people had flocked to hear at the Southbank, here in the context of the Symphonic Dances. They didn’t disappoint. Slick and snappy, full of rhythmic precision, this was a pulsating drive through Bernstein’s iconic score, erupting in the violence of the Rumble. But there was delicacy too, Dudamel coaxing honeyed strings in Somewhere, coyness in the Cha-cha. 

This is an orchestra that spreads joy and among their encores came a Tritsch-Tratsch Polka that kept being cheekily ambushed by a Venezuelan groove and, of course, the Mambo, this time with all their trademark bopping, tuba-jiggling and bass-twirling. Exuberant playing and an exuberant reception.