European Youth Orchestra rises to the Mahler challenge at Carnegie
Carnegie Hall is nearing the end of World Orchestra Week (WOW!), a festival that celebrates youth orchestras from around the world. Tuesday night’s concert in Stern Auditorium featured the renowned European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO), an ensemble consisting of young people from 27 European countries, here augmented by guest musicians from the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. The orchestra performed under the direction of Iván Fischer, and featured pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason as soloist.
The concert began with Masquerade, a 2015 work by Anna Clyne, written to be a curtain raiser. Based upon two themes, one by Clyne and the other the English folk song “Juice of Barley,” Masquerade is a colorful work featuring lively musical gestures throughout. Indeed, the gestures and orchestration seemed more the point of the piece than the themes and their development. The orchestra played with a great sense of joie de vivre and musical sparkle.
Ernst von Dohnányi’s rarely heard Variations on a Nursery Tune followed. This delightful work features ferociously difficult piano writing, over a varied, extremely clever orchestral palette. Kanneh-Mason proved masterful, handling the keyboard fireworks with playful elan and a bright, springy sound. At times the EUYO players were overly loud, but in general Fischer led them in a solid and entertaining performance. Kanneh-Mason further delighted the audience in her encore, a bluesy rendition of George Gershwin’s song “The Man I Love” (in the composer’s own transcription).
Fischer and the EUYO presented Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 after intermission.
The first movement received a very strong performance, one that that would have been impressive coming from any professional orchestra. Dash and joyous energy characterized the second movement with a lively opening and whirlwind coda.
However, the nostalgic music in between seemed a bit unfocused. The same lack of ensemble cohesion and concentration occurred in the middle of the haunting slow movement, though the opening funeral march was well paced.
Fittingly, the EUYO musicians brought their finest playing to the final movement and with idiomatic direction by Fischer, the excellent performance worked its way to a brassy and triumphant conclusion.
As an encore, the orchestra, sans conductor, broke into Amparito Roca, an energetic opus by Spanish composer Jamie Texidor Dalmau. The piece included the players moving about the stage and even performing dance moves, bringing the concert to a warm and vivacious conclusion.
The WOW! festival concludes 7 p.m. Wednesday with the Afghan Youth Orchestra. carnegiehall.org
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