Dudamel a Dud?

• The fiery young Venezuelan's Prom appearance last week, no less than Daniel Barenboim's, reminds us that it's not always all about the conductor, says Tristan

Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra at last week's Prom. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou/BBC

"I'm sick of Dudamel," a friend told me after the 27-year-old Venezuelan's Prom last Wednesday. "He's just another audience-pleasing American." A harsh assessment, but I think I can see his point. Conducting the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela last year, Gustavo Dudamel blew the roof of the Royal Albert Hall with his thrilling mix of Shostakovich, Bernstein and hot Latin rhythms. But an orchestra of fiery youngsters from South America is very different to an orchestra of sensible Swedes.

The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra are very good, to be sure, and the players have clearly begun to let their hair down a bit since Dudamel took over as Music Director last year – some of them even got rid of their jackets for the second encore, Venezuelan style – but I couldn't help but feel the spell of last year's Prom was cast by that incredible Venezuelan orchestra rather than by their conductor, charismatic though he may be.

The same might be said for Daniel Barenboim and his superb West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, who played the following night. They gave gripping performances of Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms, capping it with a magisterial encore of Wagner's Meistersingers overture. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is 50/50 Arab-Israeli, and Bazza got a big cheer when he refused to lecture us about what is wrong with the Middle East – after all, we "had just heard what is right with the Middle East."

But although Barenboim is clearly the driving force behind this admirable project, the real tribute is to the players themselves, who – very much like that Venezuelan youth orchestra – exude musicality from every pore. The orchestra's leader got so carried away at one point, he snapped a string. It was a good thing the co-leader of the Berlin Philharmonic was sitting in amongst the rank and file of the first violins – he swapped violins with the leader and still managed to make it through the finale of Brahms 4 despite being down a string. That's what I call musicianship.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/19/proms.classicalmusicandopera2