Prom 29: Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra plays Mahler

Now Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel – known by his own musicians as ‘the Dude’ – joins his old friends in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and some mightily distinguished guests to tackle a colossus of the standard repertoire.

Writing for vast forces including offstage brass, two solo singers and a large choir, Mahler takes listeners on a spectacular journey through the entire gamut of emotions. Beginning at the graveside, he remembers happier, busier and (spiritually) emptier times on the way to an apocalyptic revelation of the Day of Judgement. The promise of eternal life is then renewed in some of music’s most uplifting pages.