Simón Bolívar SO/Dudamel: Mahler Symphony No 7 CD review – never unravels the symphony’s enigmas

Gustavo Dudamel made his first Mahler disc seven years ago, a recording of the Fifth Symphony with what was then the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. He’s since recorded the Ninth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and now takes on the toughest interpretative challenge in Mahler. Any new version of the Seventh needs to stand comparison with the classic accounts by Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly and Bernard Haitink. And Dudamel’s is no exception; his orchestra is a youth orchestra no longer. But this performance, recorded live in Caracas two years ago, doesn’t begin to measure up to any of those, or to a number of others that are already available for that matter. For such an inspiring conductor, Dudamel keeps much of the work at arm’s length: the huge, dark first movement is never truly involving; the two Nachtmusik movements neither troubling nor mysterious; the finale nothing but trite. It is cwell played, but never comes close to unravelling the symphony’s enigmas.