Contrary to Andrew Clements's experience at last Wednesday's Prom (Reviews, August 15), I launch Gustavo Dudamel's concert with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra on Thursday night at Snape Maltings every bit as exciting as his celebrated Prom with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra final year. Indeed I'd debate that it was even more of a exuberate because of the repertory; from final year everybody remembers those wonderful Venezuelan kids doing the Mambo from West Side Story. But this week the supposedly impassive Swedes were giving us mainstream masterworks, Ravel's La Valse and the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz.
They made them sound vivid, dynamic and deeply moving, too. Maybe it had something to do with the acoustic of Maltings concert hall, but far from existence an orchestra "lacking whatsoever distinctive grapheme", the Gothenburg players under Dudamel's inspirational baton were positively brimful with brimstone in the Witches Sabbath and I've never seen second violins play with such fire or reckless abandon. The oboe and cor anglais solos were exquisite, the timps terrifying, the starting time clarinet skint our black Maria and the entire trombone section doing the arere in the Tico-Tico encore deserve honorary citizenship from Hugo Ch�vez. The mystery is that the BBC chose not to televise such a super Prom occasion, contempt Charlotte Higgins's perceptive assessment (Comment, August 13) of what Dudamel is bringing to classical music.
Humphrey Burton
Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Charlotte Higgins gives a wondrous summary of what makes Gustavo Dudamel so special. It likewise identified where the European classical music scene is going so wrong. Dudamel's Prom was electrifying and the sense of joyfulness, passion and pride which he and the other musicians brought to the performance was palpable. So why was this concert - one of the most visually exciting of the season - not televised by the BBC? And wherefore was no reference to the Proms season made during, earlier or after the BBC's new Maestro series? Dudamel in activity, rather than the antics of Peter Snow et al, would have been a perfect introduction to this tremendous world of music.
Matthew Holt
London
Tom Service's list of composers wHO have written for the viola is far from complete (Film&Music, August 15). The concertos by Edmund Rubbra and Benjamin Frankel, the sonatas by Arthur Bliss and Rebecca Clarke, are very fine indeed. Perhaps the earliest concerto for viola and orchestra is by Blackwood McEwen, which was performed recently and should be so again. The instrument is not scarcely an English one; we should remember the sonata of Shostakovich and the concerto by Henze. One of Bartok's last works was a viola concerto. It is a virtually beautiful instrument.
Cohn Thomas
Wakefield, West Yorkshire
More info
