The National Youth Orchestra of the USA is a new venture set up by New York's Carnegie Hall, and its first UK appearance invited comparisons not only with Britain's own NYO. The outfits, the repertoire, the sense of a country promoting itself abroad via its young musicians: it all calls to mind the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, which played Shostakovich's 10th Symphony at its own Proms debut, six years ago.
This was a rather more sedate affair. Prommers who in 2007 leaped to catch a Venezuelan-flag tracksuit top hurled from the platform won't have carried home any souvenirs from the NYO-USA's idiosyncratic uniform: black jackets teamed with danger-red trousers and star-spangled Converse. The wildest moment – during a stylishly played medley from Porgy and Bess – came when a violinist-turned-banjo-player stood up for his solo and put on a hat.
But the 120 teenage musicians made a strong ensemble, and brought a buzz to this Russophile programme. It was given last week, coals-to-Newcastle style, in St Petersburg and Moscow; NYO-USA has influential backers able to secure Valery Gergiev as conductor of the tour, and they seem to have an eye for the orchestra's diplomatic potential.
Magiya, written for the occasion by Sean Shepherd, was the one American work. It set out to capture the spikiness and glitter of Russian orchestral music, and made a perfectly weighted overture to Tchaikovsky's mammoth Violin Concerto. The soloist was Joshua Bell, no less, who wove seemingly endless, singing lines – as he did on a more intimate scale in the encore, the same composer's Melodie. The orchestral playing was full-bodied and flowing when in the foreground, occasionally pedestrian in accompaniment, but the transition from slow movement to finale was snappily handled.
It was the Shostakovich, though, that was most impressive. The strings brought a dark intensity to the long opening passage, the woodwind spotlit some already fine soloists, and the whole ensemble played with electric commitment.
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