United Kingdom Howard, Smetana, R. Strauss: Nationwide Youth Orchestra / Sir Mark Elder (conductor). Barbican Corridor, London 4.1.2024. (CK)

Dani Howard – Ascent (world premiere tour)
Smetana – Vltava (The Moldau) from Má vlast (My Nation)
R. Strauss – Alpine Symphony, Op.64

I suppose it was completely becoming that this earth-shaking efficiency of Strauss’s monstrous Alpine Symphony passed off on a day of utmost climate, for all its inconveniences (a great soaking on the best way up, and – because of a landslip on the road – a return to Southampton from Waterloo by taxi within the small hours). The piece has had a combined press: Strauss has been chastised for ‘a sure poverty of invention, a whole paucity of inspiration’ (Alan Jefferson); and the composer’s attribute comment that he had composed it to go the time whereas ready for Hofmannsthal’s libretto for Die Frau ohne Schatten did nothing to allay suspicions of note-spinning.

Sir Mark Elder clearly believes in it. In a short however illuminating introduction he indicated locations within the rating the place Strauss appears to be suggesting one thing greater behind the picturesque glories of nature – the littleness of Man in an unfathomable Universe; extra personally, an elegy for the early demise of his nice buddy and rival Gustav Mahler. Sir Mark additionally reminded us that the youthful Strauss had made the Alpine ascent which supplies the trajectory of the symphony (vastly inflated Tone Poem, reasonably) when he was 15 – the identical age as lots of the gamers behind him.

And what gamers the Nationwide Youth Orchestra are! Over 170 of them (together with offstage brass): an orchestra the Royal Albert Corridor can nearly accommodate, however crammed onto the Barbican Corridor stage it’s an ensemble that may blow the partitions out and the roof off. I worry for the structural integrity of the halls in Nottingham and Coventry the place this behemoth of a band is repeating the efficiency. They performed magnificently, corporately and individually: within the nice surges of orchestral energy, and within the passages of chamber music delicacy too.

It’s all too straightforward to expertise the work as a sequence of Nice Moments, and to permit the eye to slacken between them: however on this majestic efficiency Elder maintained pressure and momentum. The offstage searching horns and trombones within the forest had been splendidly vivid; after the atmospheric cowbells within the pasture, flutes and piccolos pierced the air; fearless excessive trumpets negotiated the glacier, and the uncovered wind solos within the tough Harmful Moments had been securely taken. And so to the summit: the faltering oboe, overwhelmed by vastness, and the horns in full cry. Most memorable of all – on this efficiency a minimum of – had been the implacable brass, full with Wagner tubas, because the descent begins, in an enormous apparition of the mountain motif, revealed now as inscrutable, menacing.

There was additional advantageous work from the woodwind principals on the best way down; the storm made an incredible racket, viscerally thrilling (the entry of the thunder sheet was, I feel, the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in a live performance corridor). Among the loveliest enjoying by strings and wind got here within the prolonged and untranslatable Ausklang (right here rendered Quiet Settles), winding the journey again to darkness and silence – briefly, earlier than the ovations of a packed corridor erupted.

After I left Elder’s efficiency of Mahler’s Third with the London Philharmonic Orchestra a number of weeks in the past, I bear in mind pondering: you’ll be able to’t beat a row of 9 horns. How a couple of row of 17? Dani Howard’s live performance opener Ascent, brilliantly conceived for the Alpine Symphony‘s brass and percussion, gave us simply that: lined up on the entrance of the stage, with the remainder of the brass and percussion on the again, they performed dealing with forwards, dealing with again, stamping, blowing soundlessly into their mouthpieces to rattling percussion, whereas trumpets and trombones mimed like a swing band or Gustavo Dudamel’s Simón Bolivars in fiesta mode… It was compelling theatre: however the lasting impression was of an enormous golden sound and a beautiful sense of house, as if we had been listening to a super-alphorn calling throughout an unimaginably huge panorama. Fantastically drilled, and conductorless. One thing I’m unlikely to overlook.

With the total orchestra on stage, and as best preparation for the Alpine Symphony (there was no interval), Sir Mark Elder and his younger gamers then gave us a a lot better-known mix of narrative and pure description: Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava. Right here the strings got here into their very own, the limpidly coiling flutes resulting in a luxurious breadth of sound in Smetana’s well-known tune. The full of life polka was gentle on its ft; the moonlit nymphs disported themselves gorgeously within the rippling of 4 harps; piccolos shrieked above the turbulence of the rapids; the fort Vysehrad hove into sight with noble grandeur. This was a mightier river than we usually hear – bursting its banks, because it had been, and flooding the corridor. An engulfing musical expertise: and we hadn’t set foot on the mountain but.

I’ve heard the Alpine Symphony in live performance a number of instances; however that is the efficiency that I’ll bear in mind. To listen to it once more, I feel, can be to danger disappointment. I don’t suppose I must.

Chris Kettle