The National Youth Orchestra. Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham. 06 January 2025, 5✩✩✩✩✩. Review: William Ruff.
Photo Credit: National Youth Orchestra.
The National Youth Orchestra. Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham. 06 January 2025.
This performance was recorded for broadcast on Tuesday 14 January 2025 on BBC Radio 3
5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: William Ruff.
“The NYO proves once again that our musical future is in very good hands.”
No matter how many times I attend the National Youth orchestra’s New Year concert, the sight of 160+ young musicians gathered together on the same stage still manages to thrill, even before a note is played. Anyone who hasn’t experienced the NYO in the flesh will never know what ten French horns sound like when matched with eight trumpets, five harps, seven percussion players – and, of course, every other supersized section of the orchestra. It may sound just a tad OTT…and it’s true that there are moments when they’re very loud indeed. However, it is the control over dynamics, the subtlety of tonal colour and the amazing precision which is far more impressive than the sheer weight of sound the NYO can hurl at the audience.
They opened with Ravel’s Boléro, a piece which, ever since the days of Torvill and Dean, has been very close to the heart of Nottingham’s audiences. I didn’t think I could bear to hear it ever again…but this performance proved me wrong. As conductor Jaime Martin says in his programme note, these young players approach each score on their music stands with completely open minds. They don’t remember world champion ice dancers: ‘there is no collective memory of how a particular piece should sound’. So this Boléro sounded new-minted, its colours as vivid as the day Ravel first put pen to paper.
The master-stroke was to have each of the solo instruments enter individually and perform separately from the rest of the orchestra. The NYO had called their concert ‘Illuminate’ and here you could see why. The effect of isolating the players really did cast light on the very specific sounds which Ravel weaves into the fabric of his score. And the effect of the grand climax, after perhaps the most famous crescendo in musical history, was stunning in a way that’s only possible when you have so much musical talent in front of you.
They followed this with Catamorphosis by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, a piece inspired by the fragile relationship we have with our planet. It’s perhaps best described as a piece of sound sculpture, its sounds so tactile that it’s tempting to reach out to feel their textures. The composer asks extraordinary things of those who play this work: the harpists have to stroke as well as pluck their strings, for instance. Two players are needed for the piano, one to play the keys and the other to reach inside it to pluck the strings and create all sorts of other-worldly sound effects. It was hard not to be mesmerised by the three bass drums, their skins set vibrating with sticks, brushes, fingers and with the palms of the players’ hands. Catamorphosis creates slow waves of sound, much of which is slow and sustained. It must be fiendishly difficult to play – but in many ways ideal for an ensemble such as the NYO. It is written for a huge orchestra and requires not only virtuosity but also sharp, enquiring minds unafraid to explore and to defy convention.
Conductor Jaime Martin’s direction throughout a very demanding programme was crystal-clear and hugely encouraging to his young musicians. The NYO clearly loved working with him and nowhere was this more in evidence than in their performance of Nielsen’s 4th Symphony that followed in the second half of the concert. The composer called it his ‘Inextinguishable’ symphony because, even though it was written in the middle of the First World War, the composer still believed in a future for mankind, one that would be won through the indomitable will of the human spirit.
Nielsen believed this could only be achieved with a struggle and it’s this battle against the odds that makes the symphony so exciting. The struggle reaches its height in a uniquely dramatic way in the finale which features a musical duel between two sets of timpani before the work can end in a glorious blaze of optimism. It was intensely moving to hear it played with such conviction by so many passionate and dedicated young musicians.
It had been an exhilarating evening but hardly a relaxing one. In order to ensure a smile on everyone’s face, Jaime Martin led his young players in a well-known Shostakovich waltz which the NYO played, hummed and practically danced to. Our musical future is clearly in very good hands.
The National Youth Orchestra
Jaime Martin conductor