CBSO
YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Symphony
Hall ****
It is difficult to know how to approach the writing of this
review, torn as it is between the stupendous excellence of the musical achievement
and the unfortunate nature of the presentation surrounding it. Let’s begin with
the positives.
During the ten days of its latest training course the young
members of the CBSO Youth Orchestra worked strenuously on Mahler’s Symphony
no.5, chiefly trained by CBSO Associate Conductor Michael Seal, arriving at a
remarkably mature, well-disciplined performance of this epic work on Sunday
afternoon, now under the clear, encouraging and empowering baton of the veteran
Dutch conductor Jac van Steen. Not so long ago the symphony was virtually a
no-go area for many professional orchestras, but here these youngsters, many of
whom were still gleams in their father’s eyes when the CBSOYO was born twenty
years ago, played it with confidence, dedication, and total immersion in its
complexities.
String sound was rich and dark, ensemble was impressive
(such thudding pizzicato from the double-basses), woodwind were pithy and
eloquent, brass were sturdy and never over-the-top, percussion were nimble and
characterful. And there was one other star to be named shortly. Only towards
the end of these draining 72 minutes did these young players start to tire,
though van Steen had paced them cautiously and considerately throughout.
Solos were taken with confidence, despite the added strains
imposed by the presentation (see below). The principal trumpet fanfared the
very opening of the symphony commandingly, the principal horn was tireless,
indefatigable in the lengthy middle movement of the five, and harpist Stien de
Neef rhapsodised tellingly in the famous Adagietto.
These players rose to all the challenges of the imposed
ideas of a full-strength team of theatrical and lighting directors and
designers with aplomb, spotlit as they stood for major contributions (what the stress on the opening’s trumpeter must have been I dread to imagine), and
subjected to endlessly shifting lighting colours, allegedly reflecting the
current mood of the music, ultimately alienating in effect and decidedly ragged
towards the conclusion (did they have anyone able to read a score giving the
cues? And heaven knows the expense of engaging all these supernumeraries, their
CVs taking up many pages in the programme-booklet). “I don’t need colours to
help me respond to the music,” grumbled one lady behind me.
The only time this “creative” approach to lighting worked
was in “Contemplative”, the central movement of the Percussion Concerto
Juvenalia by Robert Honstein, when a soft blue timbre reinforced the ruminative
nature of the music here, sandwiched between two hectic movements whose
material actually failed to justify their length. 2022 BBC Young Musician Jordan
Ashman of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire was the extraordinary soloist, his mind- and muscle-memory totally in
control of a huge panoply of percussion instruments, from stick-juggling on the
kit to gentle, sensitively phrased caressing of the tuned percussion, and the
composer was in the audience to enjoy this impressive performance.
There were, however, instances of “For this relief, much
thanks” in this concert. It had been billed as the second of the CBSO’s new
concept of wraparound presentation, drinks freely allowed in the auditorium,
clapping encouraged at the audience’s will , the introduction in the booklet
inviting us so to do, filming not frowned upon.
In the event, there was no applause until the enthusiastic
explosions at the end of both works. I saw no drinks being brought into the
sacred auditorium. And the use of phone cameras was very few and far between.
But the most spectacular pull-back from what had been
announced was the total absence of any video distractions (okay, there were
some stupid Mills & Boon-type titles flashed up for each movement of the
Mahler). I had been dreading any visual commentary prompting me how to respond
to a work I have known intimately since I watched in the wings as Leonard
Bernstein conducted it in Venice in 1968.
I was fully expecting to be watching Dirk Bogarde dying in
Visconti’s film Death in Venice as the Mahler Adagietto was playing…
And just as a footnote concerning Mahler: he actually
specified in his scores when he wanted his players to stand, and that was at
the conclusion of his First Symphony.
Christopher Morley