Prom 12: Benedetti, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Wigglesworth - adrenalin highs and string sound to die for | reviews, news & interviews
Prom 12: Benedetti, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Wigglesworth - adrenalin highs and string sound to die for
Prom 12: Benedetti, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Wigglesworth - adrenalin highs and string sound to die for
164 teenagers burn for two inspiring mentors in spectacular Russian programme
In the Netherlands, Mark Wigglesworth is already a musical legend for his work with Dutch youth orchestras. Hopefully, in addition to the year and a bit when he wrought miracles at English National Opera, he will become so in the UK after his training of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. That culminated in last night's Prom, with more than a little help from co-inspirer Nicola Benedetti.
By then, the adrenalin and concentration had been flowing through three remarkable interpretations. The start was as visceral as the unofficial finish, wood snapping on strings as Chelyabinsk-born Lera Auerbach’s Icarus flapped wildly in mid-air before biting the dust (“Humum mundere”, as the NYO’s programme but not the Proms’ tells us, is the title of the opening sequence). What refreshment to hear original melodic lines from a contemporary composer; and what a connection to the tragic end of Prokofiev's second-half Shakespearean narrative with the mesmerising final ritual of “Requiem for Icarus”. Spring rebirth came with Benedetti’s bewitching engagement in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (pictured above), matched for forward-moving mobility by Wigglesworth (were those full-orchestral Polonaises a bit too fast? Not in context). From the back of the hall, her upper-register sweetness sounded ravishing, and it wasn’t necessary to hear every note in the fast passage-work given the level of heady communication. Benedetti had already shown us what a Mensch she is as an ambassador for musical youth in last year’s BBC Young Musician Prom, and she did so again in a candid and typically generous speech before her encore, forestalling my own lines here by pointing out as a mark of teamwork the way the wind soloists handed lines to one another in the first movement’s second group of themes.
She then gave them and us a treat with the wayward folksy wistfulness of "As the Wind Goes", second movement of the Fiddle Dance Suite written for her by Wynton Marsalis, walking off the platform to infinity at the end (the last time I witnessed that was in the premiere of Matt Kaner’s Stranded at the 2017 Europe Day Concert in St John's Smith Square, when violinist Benjamin Baker's breaking away was a symbolic gesture of the self-harm the UK may still do itself). Wigglesworth had fashioned his own dramatic-symphonic sequence from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. The whole ballet score can be a magnificent Wagner-without-words experience in the concert hall, as Valery Gergiev used to show us, and any selection is bound to make you miss something: while it was acceptable, if regrettable, to shed the Nurse, the Capulet ball music and Friar Laurence, there was one omission which could have given us a fuller picture here – the suite-fusion of “Romeo and Juliet before parting”, which also gives us a bit of the crucial death-simulting-potion music at the end; “Juliet’s Bedroom” was less powerful.
No doubt, though, about the urgency and continuity of the performance. We plunged into the violence of Montagues and Capulets in another suite synthesis before Wigglesworth reverted entirely to the full ballet score, giving us the dance-into-fight sequence from Act One, violins hell-for-leather in combat as if they were the section of the Berlin Philharmonic. Their delicacy in the portrait of Juliet was equally sophisticated, the muscle of the lines in the Balcony Scene' Love Dance worthy of the very best orchestras. Never, surely, has work on the NYO string playing reached this level of adaptability and depth. Brass drove their searing lines to hair-raising effect in “The Death of Tybalt”, preceded by equally terrifying – and accelerating, odd but exciting - timpani thwacks, and the winds coasted “Juliet’s Death” towards an enigmatic ending. Wigglesworth's shaping was at the highest level of creative conducting throughout; much as I like Edward Gardner, this should have been the London Philharmonic Orchestra's choice for Jurowski's successor (announced this week). What a treat for the young participants of NYO’s “Inspire” scheme in the audience as well as for the rest of us. I heard one of them say afterwards, “I’m going to have to do a run now, I’m too excited”. I knew how he felt. There may be more surprising Proms to come, but there won't be a more thrilling one.
rating
Share this article
Add comment
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Classical music
![Geniality in a crisis: Simon Rattle and the magnificent violas of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2062%201.jpg?itok=pNh9IBqY)
![Mild, wild ride: Simon Rattle](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/br%20rat%202.jpg?itok=GbotI0SZ)
![Klaus Mäkelä, alchemist](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2058%201.jpg?itok=BrD0QL9M)
![Taking seamlessness to another level: Leonidas Kavakos, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2054%201.jpg?itok=-62k4foO)
![Conductor Dalia Stasevska](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Dalia-54.jpg?itok=amtIvgyu)
![Rikke Sandberg and Kristoffer Hyldig, spreading Nielsenian positivity](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Nielsen%203%20piano.jpg?itok=xcM-LtCu)
![Jakub Hrůša, Mao Fujita and members of the Czech Philharmonic in Dvořák's Piano Concerto](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Prom%2050%202.jpg?itok=b6p8WiIX)
![Jakub Hrůša accepts well-deserved applause](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/PROM%2049-Andy%20Paradise-48_0.jpg?itok=BIHF4Nhw)
![Lyricism wins over discussion: Sebastian Kohlepp (Flamand), Stephen Marsh (Olivier), Peter Rose (La Roche), conductor Alexander Soddy, Malin Byström (Countess) and Bo Skovhus (Count)](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Closing%20Concert-%20Capriccio%20%C2%A9%20Andrew%20Perry%2037-medium.jpg?itok=2IIwa-Ti)
![Yannick Nézet-Séguin rehearses the Lucerne Festival Orchestra](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/240822_40min_lfo_nezet-seguin_c_peterfischli_lucernefestival_06.jpg?itok=0mUg8z_a)
![Philharmonia and NYCOS performng 'Fire in my mouth'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/The%20Philharmonia%20Orchestra%20and%20NYCOS%20perform%20the%20UK%20Premiere%20of%20Fire%20in%20My%20Mouth%20at%20the%20Edinburgh%20International%20Festival%20photo%20credit_%20Jess%20Shurte_68-large.jpg?itok=lBvAX2SS)
Comments
I listened to the broadcast
Strictly speaking, yes, the
Strictly speaking, yes, the Knights' Dance appears in the Capulet ball. But in one of the suites, preceded by 'the Duke's Command', it is called 'Montagues and Capulets' and stands for the violence between the clans, which is why Wigglesworth chose it as the starter. So, this time loosely speaking, he did 'stick to the plot'. And there was no 'chunk of it there (up to Juliet's solo)' - that was all fight music from Act One.
Even though the first page of
Now you're being pedantic,
Now you're being pedantic, and if one is pedantic in return, you're wrong. The version Wigglesworth used was the movement from the suite (the orchestrataion is different). Both the fact that he chose to begin with it and the faster tempo he took, which you didn't like and which I would argue conveys a more general violence than the striding of 'Dance of the Knights' in the ballet, points to his intention to give the love story the turbulent context of warring clans.
You have certainly confirmed
Hardly challenged. I reasoned
Hardly challenged. I reasoned, you ignored. There are certain facts which can't be denied. Though I granted initially that, strictly speaking, there was some music from the Capulet ball.