Young Ones

Lately, I have been listening Rudolph Barshai and the Young German Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.5 and Barshai’s own completion of Mahler’s Symphony No.10. The recording is stunning. The 5th is scintillating. It is my recording of choice. Barshai’s completion of the 10th may not be everyone’s first choice, but it is as well played as accounts by established orchestras. These performances are all the more amazing when you consider the orchestra is made up of teenagers.

Youth orchestras are all the rage this year. Gustavo Dudamel’s talented Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony has been wowing crowds in the United States from coast to coast with charismatic performances of everything from Bernstein to Shostakovich. Last summer, they were the talk of the Proms. The attention is well deserved. They are a good orchestra. Their recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 and No.7 is intelligently performed and the group also recorded Mahler’s 5th. The acclaim Dudamel’s orchestra has been receiving is undoubtedly one of the reasons he landed his job as the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

While Dudamel and his young band has captured the attention of the world, I have to ask: what about the United States’ many youth orchestras? There is undoubtedly an attraction to the exotic that is fueling the world’s current fixation with Dudamel’s band, but there are equally as exciting youth orchestras performing right here in the United States…including Seattle.

The Seattle Youth Symphony is the United States’ largest youth orchestra. Stephen Radcliffe, only on the job for a short while, has inherited a talented group of committed youngsters. While at times wobbly, it is impossible to ignore the energy and passion with which the orchestra tackles every piece of music.

This enthusiasm was on full display Sunday. In a surprise for the audience and I am sure a surprise for the orchestra, Aaron Jay Kernis, whose Too Hot Toccata started the program, took the podium to conduct his own work. Kernis reveled to the audience that he was in town hammering out the specifics of a two week residency with the Seattle Symphony and sat in on the Sunday’s rehearsal. According to Radcliffe, while the band went through the piece, Kernis gradually began inserting himself until Radcliffe suggested he conduct the piece. Kernis did just that.

Kearnis is shorter than I imagined and even appeared a little shy compared the large, extroverted Toccata. Kernis says:

I considered Too Hot Toccata to be a kind of farewell to my [St. Paul Chamber Orchestra] Residency, but not as a farewell to the Orchestra. This work features just about all of the principal players and treats all of the various orchestra sections as soloists. There is also a horrihbly difficult honky-tonk piano solo, as well as a fiendish clarinet solo and a big part for the piccolo trumpet, in addition to a lot of virtuoso percussion writing. The music is a little hyperactive — very high energy and quite out of control, but with a slower middle section for balance.

The Toccata was plain fun. The orchestra had the piece leaping forward. Their broad grins suggested they were having as much fun playing the piece as I was hearing it. Kernis’ embodied the music too. He crouched, leaped and issued widely drawn instructions to the orchestra. There was deft solo playing too from the principals and dazzling playing by Paul Kim (concertmaster) and the pianist (whose name I cannot seem to  find anywhere).

The treat of the afternoon was Josh Roman’s performance of William Walton’s Cello Concerto. The concerto is meditative by its very nature. The smooth, subject of the first movement emerged effortlessly under Roman’s bow, the orchestra’s winds provided solid development of the same theme. The performance wasn’t all despair. Roman and the orchestra moved cleanly through the scherzo’s many moods.

Until Sunday, I only knew Walton’s concerto through recordings. What comes off as merely melancholy when heard through iPod ear buds or through stereo speakers is colorful, multidimensional and full of depth. It helps that Radcliffe, Roman and the Seattle Youth Symphony were honest stewards of the music.

Though the Toccata and Walton’s concerto stand out in my mind, Schuman’s Symphony No.3 and Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land Suite were given assured performances. The orchestra is talented, but what resonated with me most was the overriding sense of spontaneity. The feel the orchestra and Radcliffe had for the music could only come from players who enjoy what they are doing. If classical music lovers want to hear music performed with enthusiasm and not the workman mentality that sometimes overtakes more seasoned musicians, I recommend the Seattle Youth Symphony. You don’t have to go to Venezuela to hear the Seattle Youth Symphony. They are right here. You just need a free Sunday afternoon and a way to get to Benaroya Hall.