Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 4 August 2011

TWO years ago, almost to the day, I reviewed on this website a performance by the Noordhollands Youth Orchestra. My first four paragraphs concerned the lack of audience with which Inverness had welcomed, if that is the right word, this excellent orchestra of young musicians.

Let me repeat one of those four paragraphs.

“Inverness has been my home for nearly thirty years and I have watched it evolve and grow into a city in which I took pride. I can think of nowhere else where I would want to put down roots. But tonight, Inverness, you made me feel ashamed and embarrassed.”

Have things changed? Pah! Did my tirade fall on deaf ears? You can bet your sweet life it did! For this year’s visit, again by courtesy of the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, The Netherlands upped the ante and sent the full blown National Youth Orchestra – and what an orchestra it is.

And what was the reaction from Inverness? Pathetic indifference! A substantial proportion of the people scattered around the stalls in the Empire Theatre on Thursday evening were Dutch visitors, probably travelling with their sons and daughters playing so brilliantly in the orchestra. Well done to the few locals who were on their feet cheering at the end of one of the most exciting concerts seen in the city in recent years.

The excellent Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands

Sadly, there were no programme notes available for the concert – perhaps the orchestra management were warned of the probable audience size and decided to save a tree – but conductor Jurjen Hempel introduced each work, getting to the nub of the piece and cutting out so much of the academic verbiage that programme writers use to profess their knowledge.

A change to the published programme meant that the concert opened with the joyful and exuberant Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov. This was an inspired choice as it allowed all the orchestra players to settle down and build up their confidence in a work that is always well received with its copious solo spots. A glorious blaze of Spanish sun lit up a rainy Inverness, courtesy of ninety-five young Dutch artists.

It says much for the exceptional standard of the Netherlands Youth Orchestra that cellist Pieter Wispelwey, widely and justly regarded as one of the top handful of cellists in the world, will write a full two weeks into his busy schedule to perform with these musicians.

The work selected to fill the concerto spot was Schelomo : Hebraic Rhapsody by the Swiss born but naturalized American composer Ernest Bloch. Originally, it was conceived for male voice and orchestra, but a chance meeting with the cellist Alexandre Barjansky persuaded Bloch to rearrange the work for cello and orchestra and in that form it received its first public performance in New York in 1916. Later Bloch described the cello as the voice of King Solomon and the orchestra as the sounds of the world around him.

Schelomo opens with a serene, plaintiff statement from the cello, but soon flashes of traditional Jewish feelings come to the surface in the strings and expand into what could easily be the soundtrack for a biblical Hollywood epic as Charlton Heston comes out of the desert.

Wispelwey regained command with a yearning solo – just a pianissimo accompaniment from the double basses and some of the brass – that drew out a feeling of hope in a new sunrise; the calm wisdom of Solomon before the Jewish people celebrate their triumph under his leadership.

A large orchestra means a large symphony to finish the concert, and they don’t come much bigger than Mahler’s First, nicknamed “The Titan”. It was composed at a time when Mahler, primarily a conductor rather than a composer, was trying to emerge from the shadows of Brahms and Wagner. And so he used every musical device to create an innovative work stamped with his own authority, ranging from double timpani to an offstage fanfare to standing horns. In 1889 it received a mixed response from the Viennese public.

No such fate awaited the performance by the Youth Orchestra of The Netherlands. They played with both discipline and expressiveness; the tone of the huge string section was mature and assured; the percussion were precise and attentive, ranging from the triangle to the big bass drum. In many ways the real stars were the brass and wind sections – they had massive parts and they blew their hearts out.

This was a performance that could hold its own in any concert hall in any country and it justly deserved the standing ovation it received. In Jurjen Hempel the orchestra have a conductor who is calm but perceptive, authoritative yet modest – he declined to take a solo bow at the end, passing all the acclaim to the orchestra – even though he has a distinguished international career.

And finally there was an encore, inevitable after such a spectacular symphony. The exhausted blowers and hitters were given a rest to enjoy the sublime larghetto from Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Op 20; and the diminutive audience went out into the night buzzing and happy.

The orchestral repertoire is awash with these massive works calling on substantial forces. Invariably they are thrilling, spectacular and memorable. They are well worth making the effort to switch off your TVs and get off your sofas. Go and enjoy them. For economic reasons the professional Scottish orchestras are not going to bring works of this size to Inverness, so the only chance the Highland audience is going to get to hear these magnificent compositions is from visits by talented young musicians such as the Youth Orchestra of The Netherlands.

A last thought for those of you who couldn’t be bothered to turn out for this excellent band of musicians. I’m willing to bet you would be the first to express outrage if the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland went abroad to play and attracted only the size of audience that came to the Empire Theatre last night.

The Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands also play at The Music Hall, Aberdeen (5 August) and Horsecross, Perth (6 August).

© James Munro, 2011

Links

• Aberdeen International Youth Festival