Review of Perth Youth Orchestra in Perth Concert Hall

Apr 15 2011 Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PERTH Concert Hall was a most enjoyable place to be, when Perth Youth Orchestra under conductor Allan Young played, to a very large audience, an exciting and colourful programme with great assurance, engagement and a sense of fun.

They began, literally, with an old warhorse: Suppé’s Overture Light Cavalry. The brass section opened confidently and with splendor of tone. Not to be outdone the First Violins were excellent both in accuracy in their exposed passage work and in warm tone in the slower Hungarian episode. All combined gloriously in the rousing end. This set the bar high.

Heather Sadler was the first soloist of the evening in the third movement of Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto. The spiky introduction of the strings was well done as was their continuation into the lively, more folksong-like main body. Heather Sadler’s warmly bucolic clarinet set a lively pace, easing for the coolly songful episodes, where both soloist and strings played beautifully lyrical lines.

Although all still young, the musicians’ performance of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story can only be described as virtuoso. Timing and attack gave a good Prologue. Their feeling for Somewhere came over clearly. The Scherzo was playfully light with lightening fast reactions. Mambo, with its fearless percussion, was a highlight. The solo violins were excellent in the Cha Cha and the Cool Fugue and Rumble were irreproachable. The high violins at the end of the Finale brought an impeccably tuned serenity to the emotional ‘reconciliation’ theme.

Leader Rachael Smart came forward as violin soloist in Wieniawski’s Légende. After the bassoons set the colourfully Romantic scene Rachael began her lyrical rhapsodizing. The atmosphere came over well, and the many tricky technical aspects lacking, such as the extensive double stopping, were well in place.

Though setting the bar higher and higher Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No.2 bounded easily over it! Far from the serious symphonies it was above all fun. The opening March had a sparkle and superb orchestral colour. The whirling woodwind lines contrasted with lyrical strings in the second piece. The saxophones and accordion added extra colour in a fluent Waltz. The Polka was delightfully dotty, phrases threatening to turn into a well known Hornpipe, the final cadence a perfectly timed joke. They brought out the slightly fateful tread of the Waltz, the trombone hinting at nastiness. As mentioned before the percussion was excellent throughout, but in the final piece Finlay Turnbull on xylophone deserves extra praise. All was done with high joie de vivre, but this was further surpassed by their encore: Robert Sheldon’s Danzas Cubanas. Inspired by work with a Brazilian percussionist earlier in the year this was a virtuoso riot of colour and rhythm with solo spots, as in jazz, for individual players. These were all appreciated with delight by the enthusiastic audience.

Ian Stuart-Hunter