Brighton Festival – Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra

It’s so lovely when talented youth teaches old ears wonderful new tunes. That’s exactly what our wonderful Youth Orchestra did in this concert.

I had only ever heard a few works over the radio by Louise Farrenc and her delightful Overture No 1, with its hints of Schubert and of Mendelssohn, was completely new to me. Our young musicians sold it very well and I look forward to enjoying it again, often. It made a splendid opening for this ambitious programme.

The concerto featured a star player, the very impressive Braimah Kanneh-Mason and his exquisite violin. As a member of Nottingham’s most prestigious family, he is a wonderful example and inspiration for the aspiring young players who rehearsed with and accompanied him so well. Their sensitive playing was carefully directed by conductor Peter Davison, answering and supporting the soloist to great effect. The choice of music was significant too. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto is no easy work. At half an hour or so, it demands sustained concentration from both the musicians and audience alike because it is not familiar concert hall fare, yet! With interpreters like Kanneh-Mason championing his work we can expect to hear this piece more often too.

Braimah Kanneh-Mason

After the interval the orchestra showed us again its abundance of talent. Their skills and musicianship were keenly exposed in Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain. This is a very well known concert favourite, with all kinds of virtuoso effects and risky solo moments. A special mention must be made of the shrieking flutes (and piccolo?) whose terrified howls were both rapid and accurate. We enjoyed a most creditable performance.

The risk taking continued with the Nutcracker Suite, Tchaikovsky’s once under-valued yet now extremely popular ballet score. Again, this music is so well known that any slight flaws are apparent even to cloth ears. I have heard it played successfully by tiny pit-orchestras accompanying dazzling dancers – a large band of enthusiastic youngsters were bound to have difficulties keeping it tight, especially as they attempted the speeds Tchaikovsky intended. The opening Miniature Overture could so easily have fallen apart but it didn’t and great was the relief when it all ended together. In the following seven dances there were plenty more solo parts and many examples of really sensitive accompanying that let the familiar tunes shine through. I found the delicate sound of the celeste in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was strangely too loud. I would have preferred more twinkle less sound. The atmosphere created in the Arabian Dance was beautifully weird and quite as mysterious as the slow movement of the concerto earlier in the evening.

As the school year closes, with course-work and exams, concerts and proms, the best of these young performers will no doubt soon be off to college, some to our great conservatories and a new generation of emerging stars will step forward. After a concert as stimulating as this we know that they will certainly go far – Congratulations and good luck!

Brighton Dome Concert Hall,
12 May 2025

Rating:

–

Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra
Peter Davison – conductor
Braimah Kanneh-Mason – violin

Farrenc : Overture No 1 in E minor
Coleridge-Taylor : Violin Concerto in G minor Op.80
Mussorgsky : Night on a Bare Mountain
Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker Suite Op.71a