Mise Eire Suite - O Riada
Firebird Suite - Stravinsky
Symphony No 5 - Tchaikovsky
Like the 1990 concert of Tchaikovksy's complete Nutcracker under Hugh Maguire or Strauss's Ein Helden leben under the late Albert Rosen in 1992, last night's National Youth Orchestra concert under Alexander Aniss imov was a major landmark in the orchestra's history.
There's not a great deal to be said for the suite from Sean O Riada's music for the film Mise Eire, the potency of which, without the images it was meant to accompany, has faded over the years. Even Anissimov's clean-limbed approach could not hide its hollow climactic postures, and start-of-concert nerves seem to have ensured that not all the solos were taken without mishap.
However, from the atmospheric opening of Stravinsky's 1919 Firebird Suite - finely-blended and measured of tread, yet with a suitably enigmatic aura - it was clear that Anissimov was going to demand the utmost from his young players. Musical performances register with an audience not just for what they achieve, but also for what they set out to achieve, and in the latter regard this concert had everything going for it.
I don't know that I've ever heard the players of the National Youth Orchestra strive so consistently with what you might call unanimity of musical intelligence over things like clarity of internal balance, smooth engagement of rubato, unanimous negotiation of tempo changes and the sure pacing and placing of climaxes.
The young musicians' enthusiasm can always be taken for granted, as can their ability to deliver raw emotional punch in the heat of the moment. Anissimov took all of this on board, but held things nicely in check so that the larger picture could be painted in greater detail.
His vision of Stravinsky's Firebird and Tchaikovksy's Fifth Symphony communicated in a manner straight and unfussy, his function on this occasion seeming to be simultaneously that of sympathetic mouthpiece of the composer and master hypnotist, coaxing from his youthful cohorts a refined consistency which, collectively, they might otherwise not even have imagined.
