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Gustavo
Dudamel and Jose Antonio Abreu:
Venezuelan classical music
comes of age.
By
Gustavo Coronel
Almost
sixty years ago I started attending my last year of high
school in Caracas, Venezuela and traveled every day by
bus, before dawn, from the town of Los Teques to Caracas, a
20-mile hair-raising ride along a very narrow road bordering
precipices, so that I could be in time for my classes. I would
return to Los Teques late in the evening, always hoping that
the driver of the dilapidated bus would not fall asleep. In
many occasions I did not make it to my first morning classes
because, when the bus stopped at the old National Theater,
in Caracas, I would climb down of the bus and go, instead,
to listen to the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra rehearsing for
its next concert. This did not harm my studies significantly
and opened a marvelous new door for me: the door of classical
music, a magic land that I have inhabited as an eager listener
for six long decades. The emotion I felt listening to the powerful
Wagner’s overtures or to the moving Brahms and Tchaikovsky’s
symphonies added a new dimension to my life. Intercalated with
the European and Slavic composers the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra
would include works by young Venezuelan composers: Inocente
Carreño, Pedro Antonio Rios Reyna, Evencio and Gonzalo
Castellanos and a sensational new composer Antonio Estévez.
In those years I saw wonderful European conductors like Sergiu
Celibidache at close range and realized that classical music,
even more so than popular music, is a truly universal language.
Celibidache felt as at ease with the Venezuelan musicians as
he felt conducting the European orchestras. Wagner was Wagner
and Gershwin was Gershwin all over the world.
For many decades, however, Venezuelan classical music stayed
in the shadows, music and musicians generally considered to
be of the second level, picturesque but not apt for major global
roles. Perhaps the strongest claim to a position of the first
rank in the classical music global circuit came from guitarist
Alirio Diaz,
a disciple of Andres Segovia. Diaz played the classic guitar
repertoire
with great distinction and also started to play the guitar
music of Venezuela, especially the delightful waltzes of Antonio
Lauro.
Through
the efforts of Diaz and of Australian guitarist John
Williams
the music of Lauro became increasingly played and eventually
an integral part of the international repertoire.
Slowly the music of Venezuela crept into the international
music halls. Inocente
Carreños’s
symphonic suite “Margariteña” was one of
the early favorites, being built on folkloric airs from the
island of Margarita, in the manner utilized by Russian or Armenian
composers such as Borodin and Kachaturian.The “Cantata
Criolla” of Antonio
Estevez
became, by far, the most influential and universal of all Venezuelan
musical works .
It is a composition for chorus and orchestra, written in
1954, based on a poem by Venezuelan poet Alberto Arvelo Torrealba
(“Florentino,
the man who sang with the devil) and describes
a musical contest between Florentino, a Venezuelan “Llanero”(man
from the Plains) and the Devil. Florentino is a tenor, the
Devil a baritone. Florentino is a light skinned man, the Devil
a zambo. Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez briefly and unsuccessfully
manipulated this moving composition racially and politically,
when he tried to depict himself on television as Florentino,
fighting the Devil (the white, rich oligarchs). There was only
one problem: in the poem Florentino is the white one, while
the devil is the zambo, the one who looks like Chavez. Chavez
soon gave up trying to invert these symbols since reality did
not fit his claims. The poem on which the “Cantata Criolla” is
based seems to be linked to the biblical story of Jacob, who
became Israel by doing battle all night with the Angel of Death.
As dawn came, the Angel of Death felt defeated, just as Florentino
defeats the Devil when dawn breaks over the Venezuelan plains.
In 1975 an economist by the name of Jose
Antonio Abreu created
a program designed to bring the joy of classical music to the
Venezuelan children, especially the members of poor communities.
As part of this program he founded the Symphony orchestra Simon
Bolivar and the National Symphony Youth Orchestra.
The success
of the Youth Orchestra led to the establishment of a national
network of youth orchestras which came to include about 130,000
children and adolescents, playing in more than 200 orchestras
and “musical cells”. The system also included instrument
repair workshops and special musical programs for children
with disabilities or learning problems. The program has been
described as “a social movement of massive dimensions… using
music as an instrument of social integration”. Abreu
has done this monumental task during the last 30 years with
the support of the Venezuelan private sector and, less so,
of the different Venezuelan governments.Abreu is not the easiest
of persons to get along with, reserved and stubborn, intellectually
brilliant, torn between arrogance and humility. However, his
perseverance and organizational skills have created one of
the most magnificent and successful social programs in Latin
America, now followed by twenty-three other countries. In 1994
Abreu became Venezuelan Minister for Culture in President Caldera’s
government, until 1998, when Chavez came into power. Abreu
has received much international recognition for his wonderful
work.
The Venezuelan Youth Orchestra has performed in many countries.
Placido Domingo cried when he heard it (“Venezuelan Youths
transformed by music”, by Jens Erik Gould, BBC News,
November 28, 2005). Simon Rattle, Director of the Berlin Philharmonic
said that this orchestra was doing the most important work
in classical music “anywhere in the world”. Claudio
Abbado invited the orchestra the orchestra to play in Germany.
One of the best alumnus of the “system”, as the
program of youth orchestras is called,
is Gustavo
Dudamel*, later a disciple of Rattle and winner
of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s
Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition. Dudamel, 28, has become
one of the most sought
after musical conductors in the world and has just been named
as the replacement of Esa-Pekka Salonen to direct the Los Angeles
Philharmonic.
Dudamel’s ascent to the major leagues of classical music
symbolizes the success of Jose Antonio Abreu’s program
and illustrates how children from poor social origins can become
superb musicians. It is paradoxical that, in Venezuela, the
members of the orchestras are not allowed to take their instruments
home for being of being mugged. This is the sad situation in
a country where 13,000 people per year are assassinated and
where some of those are killed because the killers want their
shoes.
Against the tragic background of Venezuelan current political
and social conditions the distinction given to Gustavo Dudamel
and the example set by Jose Antonio Abreu are magnificent and
reassuring news for all Venezuelans who might have started
to lose their collective self-esteem.
*See
The New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/arts/music/09orch.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Gustavo
Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of
the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de
Venezuela (PDVSA), author of several books. At the present
Coronel is Petroleumworld associate editor and advisor
on the opinion and editorial content of Petroleumworld.
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
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