On 19 April, The National Youth Orchestra of England conducted by Paul Daniel, performed George Benjamin’s Dance Figures and Thomas Adès's Overture, Waltz and Finale from Powder Her Face, a concert which rivalled the Venezuelan, Simon Bolivar Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel’s recent accolades.
‘The wheel of fashion never stays still, but it’s possible that the last seven days may leave an enduring residue, in the form of belated public acceptance that classical music can be as stylish and exciting as any race or any ball-game.
… it was good planning to put our own National Youth Orchestra on stage at the South Bank, the moment the Bolivars had vacated it: with memories fresh, we could make comparisons. The biggest difference is in age: while the Bolivars are in their twenties, many of the NYO players are still only fourteen… On the podium was Paul Daniel, visibly rejuvenated after his release from the cares of office at English National Opera: the sound which greeted his down-beat at the start of the overture to Ades’s Powder Her face came with electrifying force. And as the orchestra negotiated the rapids of two movements of this sophisticated work, one forgot they weren’t professionals.
… George Benjamin’s Dance Figures was designed to give every instrument its moment in the spotlight, and they rose to this challenge too. And in this work, with its glittering transparency, they demonstrated a superiority over the Bolivars by maintaining a pianissimo background accompaniment of a kind the Venezuelans can’t yet produce.’
The Independent (Michael Church), 20 April 2009
‘In all, it threw down quite a challenge for the home team, aka the National Youth Orchestra. Their concert yesterday had a dance theme, a cunning idea as it took them close enough to the Bolívar's concert to make the differences between them stand out all the more clearly.
Pulse and irresistible bodily energy once again poured off the platform, from an almost equally large number of players, but looking about 10 years younger (as indeed they were). But this wasn't carnival, or urban/jungle primitivism; this was dancing en pointe. In fact, in George Benjamin's Dance Figures, the steps were so delicate and quiet, it seemed as if everything bodily had been laid to sleep, and we were in a realm of pure spirit. In Ravel's La Valse, the delicious dreamy pauses in rhythm were beautifully caught, and the shrieking clarinets and foxtrot rhythms in Adès's Overture, Waltz and Finale were as sleazy as you could wish.
So who carried off the palm? The Bolívar's programme gave less opportunity for finesse, though one could glimpse it here and there. But their cumulative energy was astounding. The NYO… played like a dream and gave us moments of quiet magic. So let's say music took the palm, which is surely what both these great youth orchestras would want.’
Telegraph (Ivan Hewett), 20 April 2009
‘It's not a competition... of course. But when the National Youth Orchestra took to the Royal Festival Hall stage yesterday at the endpoint of the London residency of the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, it was hard not to make comparisons – and hope, in a vaguely patriotic manner, that the home team would not disgrace themselves.
What a wonderful programme it was. Under Paul Daniel, they performed Adès' Overture, Waltz and Finale from Powder Her Face (given a frankly dirty performance by these cleancut teenagers); Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances; Benjamin's wonderful Dance Figures; and Ravel's whirling, decadent, queasy-making La Valse. In fact, in terms of sheer musical magnetism, skill, finesse, interpretative depth – our chaps were a nose ahead of their Caribbean counterparts. And they should be. As El Sistema's founder, Maestro José Antonio Abreu, pointed out at a seminar I chaired on Saturday, Venezuela is a young country with an even younger music-education system (its first conservatoire opened in the 1920s, and by 1975 it had only two symphony orchestras). And in any case, the raison d'etre of each ensemble is quite different. The Venezuelan orchestra is the apex of a radical social action project that aims to lift children out of poverty through a four-hour-a-day immersion in orchestral music. The National Youth Orchestra is the elite orchestra for the best of British young players from the ages of 13-19.
… The cheers and stamping for the NYO were real and passionate, but quite a distance short of the whoops, endless standing ovations and party atmosphere that the Venezuelans engendered, briefly infusing British audiences with some of the abandon and excitement of a Latin crowd. But I still wish we celebrated the National Youth Orchestra a bit more. It is a truly wonderful orchestra, a credit to Britain. And the organisers of the Cultural Olympiad need surely look no further for a group of elite young people who embody, and surpass, Olympian ideals.’
The Guardian (Charlotte Higgins), 20 April 2009
‘In this dance-related programme, the excerpts from Powder Her Face immediately established the players’ absolute assurance in dealing appreciatively with Thomas Adès’s pastiche…
… George Benjamin’s Dance Figures (2004) has already established itself as a modern classic (this was at least its third performance in London), music both for “modern dance” (the composer’s description) and the concert hall, its birth in the latter being courtesy of Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony. David Robertson and Oliver Knussen have already ensured two veritable accounts in London; and Paul Daniel has added a third, the NYO absolutely on top of music that is a real challenge to orchestras in its fastidiousness. Daniel might have intensified the silence that divides sections 6 and 7 by conducting through it (as Knussen did), but whether eerie, strident, mechanistic or ethereally beautiful, Dance Figures is a cracking score (at times a counterpart to Debussy’s Jeux), one that grows in stature with each encounter. Benjamin seemed delighted.’
The Classical Source (Colin Anderson), April 2009
