The Sage, Gateshead
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
Yan Pascal Tortelier

You probably wouldn't usually choose to spend an evening in the company of a large gang of teenagers, but the members of the National Youth Orchestra are no ordinary youths.

This evening's programme, prepared in a two-week workshop under Yan Pascal Tortelier, would extend even the most seasoned symphony orchestra. Strauss's Don Quixote and Sibelius's Symphony No 2 are megaliths of the late romantic repertoire; would any professional band have the stamina, the enthusiasm, or even the naivety to tackle both in a single evening? Don Quixote is an apt choice to showcase the orchestra's individual strengths, being one of the most democratic tone poems, in which everyone seems to have their say. The accomplished solo voices of cellist Guy Johnston (an NYO alumnus) and violist Jennifer Stumm are absorbed into a rich, quixotic sound world threaded with seductive plaints from the oboe, ripe outbursts of tenor tuba and comically coccyx-rattling work from the bass clarinet.

Alfred Hickling