Dudamel Revels In The Music Of Latin America
Celebrated Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel returns to the Boston Symphony for his second week of concerts, taking time out from guiding the LA Philharmonic through their 100th season. The venerated musical master brings the music of his home continent to the Symphony Hall stage with the help of Argentine classical pianist Sergio Tiempo, Venezuelan baritone Gustavo Castillo and tenor Aquiles Macahdo, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, as led by James Burton.
The evening kicks off with Venezuelan cellist and composer Paul Desenne's Hipnosis Mariposa, the 2014 symphonic piece written at the request of Dudamel himself. The 12 minute work exemplifies Desenne's vibrant Latin American influences, mixed in with Bachian counterpoint. This is followed by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera's almost avant-garde Piano Concerto No. 1, an atmospheric work where percussive moments give way to bursts of jazz-tinged piano to stunning effect. Things come to a close with Venezuelan muso Antonio Estevez's Canatat Criolla. Perhaps the most important Venezuelan nationalist work of the 20th century, its chorus and vocalists chronicle the competition of counterpoint between folk hero Florentino and the devil.