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An exhilarating performance in the round
REVIEW: NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Roundhouse
IN the epic novel Underworld, by Don DeLillo, one of the protagonists gives a marvelous description of watching a couple of teenagers fishing in the sun, and how he “took pleasure in all this effortless youth, rude youth in the best sense, robust and vigorous and unfinished”.
These words came back to me on Friday night at the Roundhouse, watching the National Youth Orchestra put on a performance so assured, polished and unaffected that only the spiritually dead could fail to be reinvigorated by it.
This concert summed up what it is to be young – the players were unfazed by the auditorium, brimming with confidence and comfortable in the exhibition of their considerable skill.
The opening piece, Bow Wave – a new composition by Peter Wiegold – saw the orchestra perform, from memory, a work they had developed and improvised with the composer over the course of their 10-day rehearsal. The soloists stood at the front of the stage, engaged in an electrifying musical duel as the line of violin players, choreographed to perfection, snapped their heads from left to right with a run of notes. There were amplified shouts from the trombone players and a gleefully mischievous moment with the double bass and cellos swinging on their end pins. Taken together, it created a sense of enthusiasm and daring experimentation that was one of the most exciting things I’ve seen on a London stage.
Next up was Berio’s Sinfonia, a piece I’ve never enjoyed, and though this performance was note perfect (insofar as it’s possible to tell with such a discordant composition) I could probably die quite happily if I never hear it again.
The Sinfonia is hard work, the kind of music that makes you furrow your brow while you listen, no matter how highly-set you might think your brow is.
But while I don’t like it as a piece of music – and it’s questionable how much the audience enjoyed hearing it or the orchestra enjoyed playing it – the value of such an experience for young musicians cannot be overstated.
This isn’t music you can bluff your way through, and I know this largely because I bluffed my way through countless performances when I played in a youth orchestra some years ago (before being ignominiously found out and asked not to return for the following term).
But to take on Berio’s complex work and perform it with such aplomb represents an immense learning curve from which each member of the orchestra can only benefit in the long term.
After the interval the orchestra was back in the land of harmony and melody with Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, a sublime piece that depicts all the beauty and dangers of a day and night spent on a mountain range, told through upwards of 50 minutes of continuos music.
While not as exhilarating as Bow Wave and not as challenging as the Sinfonia, Alpine Symphony gave the orchestra a chance to stretch their legs and exhibit the rich sound this 160-strong outfit has in its armoury.
It was interesting to watch Semyon Bychkov conduct in this piece, largely because he looked nothing like a man conducting a youth orchestra.
The youth orchestra conductor is usually a frazzled-looking shadow of his or her former self, desperately trying to keep the wheels from coming off while frantically beating out a time signature in gestures more appropriate for someone directing a plane to its docking point.
But Bychkov had no such concerns. Here was a man who trusted his orchestra, who was confident in their ability to perform and was therefore free to conduct for expression only and tease out a finessed performance from his young charges.
Every second of the five-minute ovation was deserved. This is the future of classical music. The future is NYO. |
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