National Youth Orchestra (NYO) community demonstrate brilliance and a creative passion at their Illuminate concert at Warwick Arts Centre

06/01/2025 by Clive Peacock

What an inspired choice of encore! The Waltz from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No 2 brought National Youth Orchestra’s Illuminate concert to an end, and an end, too, to their winter residence at Warwick University.  This gruelling week is a chance for the 96 new players to join established ones to forge a fine musical ‘community’ which prepares them for additional public performances at The Barbican and in Nottingham.

Many in the orchestra are too young to have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut (1999) which used Shostakovich’s Waltz from his Jazz Suite No 2 to brilliant effect in the opening moments of the erotic psychological drama. One of four outstanding saxophone players delivered the opening bars, to be joined by three colleagues, and then overwhelmed by their vast brass sections’ colleagues with the horns starting a swaying action in unison, reminiscent of those US college marching bands.   Trombones and trumpets joined in this thrilling exhibition of excited players now on their feet, given a well-deserved chance to let their hair down, sadly, the cellists and double bassists needed to remain seated!

These 96 new players with the returning 70 or so established players began work at their winter residence before New Year - a committed ‘community’ by the time of the public concerts.  With audience members struggling through wintry conditions to the concert venue it was ironically appropriate that Maurice Ravel’s Boléro was the opening work bringing back images of Torvill and Dean’s Olympic gold in figure skating in Sarajevo where wintry conditions are the norm! Principal flautist, Isaac Skey was note perfect as the haunting opening bars unfolded.  Clever, creative choreography with players moving to the front of the stage permitted clarinet, bassoon, oboe, saxophone and trumpet soloists the opportunity to show their talents.  As the unwavering repeated phrase in C minor develops so the orchestra became more and more energised by Conductor, Jaime Martín, with the expected famous climax clearly winning his approval, his recognition of those talented soloists not going unnoticed.

Icelandic composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Catamorphosis refers to the risk of catastrophe and the morphing between the various polar forces. She   employs five harpists to open her work who combine with the extensive percussion section players to produce a luscious susurration akin to tall grasses swaying in the breeze. Added to this, one of two pianists is employed to use a scraping technique of the strings to increase the whistling sensation as the work evolves.  With grinding double basses and growling tubas, the piece reflects the barren, sometimes inhospitable terrain, of the composer’s homeland, Iceland.  “Its brutality can be inspiring”, she says in her programme notes, yet, as is well known, her extremely welcoming and helpful countrymen and women live on an island whose geology is very fragile. She reflects this fragility using musical techniques, new to both players and audiences, which suggest the movement of the island’s tectonic plates that give islanders such cause for alarm. Occasional tubular bells sound alarms, violins continue to deliver pulverised sounds before the work concludes with a lone bell signalling, we hope, a direction the world needs to move to give us a future to enjoy. Catamorphosis is one of those very recent contemporary works which deserves much further exploration; this first outing at Warwick was a challenge to both listener and musician.

NYO’s ‘community’ endeavours extend to innovating post-interval  attention grabbing restarts.  As a prelude to their remarkable robust opening to Carl Neilsen’s Symphony No 4, The Inextinguishable, brass players played a fanfare as they processed from the rear of the Butterworth Hall to the stage.  String players clapped in unison as their brass colleagues moved to their section seats.  Bassonist, Max Docherty introduced this frenetic work, speaking clearly and enthusiastically, just as violist, Chloe Chung had done when introducing Catamorphosis. Clearly, Jaime Martín enjoys challenging the players he now knows so well; nine horns are asked to play with bells up, strings are required to deliver extensive stretches of pizzicato playing.  Two duelling timpani players at opposite ends of the vast percussion section compete for attention with the inextinguishable enthusiasm of wind players, during which the impressive rank of flautists happily challenge the horns with breathtaking playing which helped spirits soar in the allegro. Exhausting at times it certainly was, stimulating it certainly was, with the final flourish deserving the outburst of applause and the encore which followed.

Four saxophone players returned to the platform to lead the Shostakovich Waltz from his Jazz Suite No 2 as players let their hair down.  Audience members were offered further treats in the foyer of the Arts Centre as five harpists tackled a collection of Argentinian tango works.  Quite a night!!

Clive Peacock