{TABLE} Night on the hare mountain ........ Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio espagnol ................ Rimsky-Korsakov Symphony No 2 ..................... Rachmaninov {/TABLE} IT'S always been a feature of National Youth Orchestra concerts that you never know quite what you're going to get in terms of playing standards. Membership changes from concert to concert, star players move on, and even the size of various sections fluctuates with variations in the supply of players.
However, the orchestra's all Russian programme, given at the NCH on Saturday under En Shao, revealed a band quite new in character, altogether better regulated and more even in achievement, less flighty and excitable (and less accident prone) than any I've heard before.
To a certain extent one missed the old sense of straining at the leash eagerness in the pictorial pieces of the first half. The original spirit of Mussorgsky's witches Sabbath is already well enough tamed by the conservative RimskyKorsakov's re working of Mussorgsky's intentionally uncouth original. And, in spite of the strong solo playing in Rimsky's own Capriccio espagnol, the conductor's view of this colourful music seemed a touch too sober.
The nurturing care of Shao's conducting reaped altogether richer dividends in a glowing reading of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, successfully long breathed and paced with sureness and confidence. For well knit, supportive teamwork, musical poise and warmth of expression, this was as fine as anything this orchestra has ever done.
