FIRE AND ICE: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS MAHLER
Guest conductor Gustavo Dudamel was back with gusto, leading “this foaming, roaring, raging sea of sound,” as Mahler once described his own raging Symphony No. 5. The Venezuelan led with fire—and no printed score—through this 71-minute masterpiece that Mahler’s compatriots in Vienna would call “gefühlsmȁssig”—surfeited with emotion. The crowd at Davies Hall stayed hushed in awe, without fidget or distraction, in hearing a master at work with the virtuoso San Francisco Symphony. Until the patrons’ jubilant ovations at the end….
