The National Youth Orchestra Of Great Britain takes budding musicians from all over the island, even including a couple of members from The Channel Islands, and with a huge membership, once on stage, they are a mighty force to be reckoned with, totally some 140+ instrumentalists. Add in The National Youth Brass Band Of Great Britain too, and for the first of two very substantial works this evening, the stage of Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall was crammed with young musicians and their instruments. I have never seen so many on this stage before.
The concert started therefore with a piece of new writing from contemporary composer Gavin Higgins. This 40+ minute Concerto Grosso For Brass Band And Orchestra was not an easy piece to play. It was not an easy listen either. All too often, today's composers go for showy and clever over lyrical and tuneful, and for this reviewer at least, this was a prime example. Throwing pretty much everything at this concerto, there were several types of unconventional percussion, as well as non standard ways of playing the orchestral instuments. Flirting vagariously betwen harmony and atonality, discord, and other contemporary harmonic or enharmonic structures, Higgins' concerto grosso - literally a large concerto - used instruments from the brass band and indeed the brass band section as a whole as the concertino, whilst the orchestra as a whole became a rather grandiose ripieno. It was a bold and brash work in two movements, and the second movement was far more interesting dynamically, leading to a loud and flamboyant finale.
After the interval and we settled in for the second lengthy piece in this evening's concert. One of the orchestra's more loved and popular 20th century symphonies, Prokofiev's fifth. To say that this work is a piece of absolute genius is not an understatement! Written in response to the Second World War it was a hugely daring thing to write. The Soviet Union at that time were very controlling of all things, especially any real or perceived anti-soviet sentiment, and the feeling that the war was perhaps futile and uneccessarily aggressive was not party thinking at all! However, one can clearly hear Prokofiev's own reaction to the war in between the military marches and propoganda tunes. The first movement is dark, brooding, warlike, but sincere and heartfelt, whilst the second movement, a scherzo, is light, tuneful, and ironic. Both the third and final movements use elements of Russian folk songs and military marches; a fervent dance of death in the third, and a huge build of false hope and happiness in the last movement to the final few bars which are quite clearly gun shots and death.
Conducting this piece was Jessica Cottis, and her conducting was superb. It was evident that every member of the orchestra respected her, and she was animated, controlling, and envigorating. A joy to watch, and I can only imagine a pleasure also to be conducted by her.
The orchestra were on fine form too. The membership of this ensemble ranged from 13 - 19 years, and yet they were completely indistinguishable from any renowned symphony orchestra you care to name. Their cumulative playing was impressive to say the absolute least. Talented, dedicated, and simply superb!
In between the two major works, a short polyphonic fanfare was performed by both orchestra and brass band. This was not in the programme, and so do not know what it was.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 12.4.23
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