Bundesjugendorchester, Berlin
Usher Hall Sunday Classics - 19/1/2025
Bundesjugendorchester Berlin, Wayne Marshall (conductor and piano), German-British Choir Academy
The Usher Hall series of Sunday afternoon concerts, with invited orchestras from all over the world, continues to be successful both musically and also in terms of audience. A virtually full house turned up at 3pm for a concert featuring the Bundesjugendorchester from Berlin, with an attractive programme of Britten, Gershwin and Holst. This fabulous youth orchestra, with players aged from 14-19, is described as the official partner to the Berlin Philharmonic, and indeed has Sir Simon Rattle as its Conductor Laureate. Today’s concert was the last of a tour which has been going on since the New Year, and it was clear that the young musicians were having a ball. Faultless playing, crisp rhythms, perfect ensemble – this was music-making of the very highest standard. I am constantly staggered by the quality of young players nowadays, and it is a very welcome antidote to all the doom and gloom we hear about the future of classical music. The fact that the Germans pour enormous amounts of money into the classical arts is fantastic, and it would be great to think that we might do the same here in Scotland. We can only hope that the current climate here almost of antagonism to the arts is a short lived trend!
Directing the proceedings was the charismatic figure of Wayne Marshall, the British conductor, pianist and organist. It was crystal clear that the young players were captivated by Mr Marshall, as were we in the audience, and it was fascinating to watch him conduct, sans baton, in both Britten’s ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ and Holst’s ‘The Planets’, and then conduct from the Steinway keyboard in George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
I realised halfway through the Britten that I had never heard it live in the concert hall before, and it must have taken the music world by storm when first heard in the autumn of 1946. Written at the same time as ‘Peter Grimes’, Britten was obviously on a red hot composing streak, and this charming and extremely clever work remains one of his best known compositions. British music is no longer the mystery it once was for continental European orchestras, but I wonder if these young musicians had had much experience of either Britten or Holst before this tour. They certainly played with absolutely full commitment, and Purcell’s famous theme, which Britten used as the theme for his variations, has rarely been heard to better effect. Wayne Marshall coaxed and encouraged his players through the intricacies and revelatory passages of the variations, involving the various sections of the orchestra for our enlightenment. I’m sure the many younger members of the audience were able to hear the different sonorities of all the instruments. As usual, and I’m sorry to repeat myself, but, by dimming the auditorium lights, the management of the Usher Hall deprived any members of the audience of the chance to read the programme notes, which Britten wrote to explain his ‘Young Person’s Guide’ to those young persons in the hall!
What was noticeable throughout the concert was the way the very large orchestra changed desks and seats, allowing the young players to experience different positions of authority and importance in their sections. One of the most dramatic changes occurred in the second half where one of the percussionists climbed the steep banks of the organ gallery to take over the organ at one point. I have never seen this in an orchestra before and I reckon it was a brilliant idea.
The second work in the programme was George Gershwin’s fantastic ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, with Mr Marshall conducting from the piano. The incredibly young looking clarinettist who played the opening bluesy solo was terrific. Incidentally, this famous opening came about almost by accident, as the original jazz band clarinettist improvised the more traditional chromatic scale as written into a wailing glissando, as a sort of joke. Everyone thought it was fantastic, and of course, now it is the most renowned part of the score!
Since there was time pressure on Gershwin to finish the score, the big piano cadenza three quarters of the way through the Rhapsody was improvised by Gershwin in the premiere, and only notated later. This has allowed scope for later interpreters to do the same, and since Wayne Marshall is a virtuoso and a composer, he gave us a fantastic performance of the cadenza complete with a jig and scraps of ‘Loch Lomond’, to the delight of the Scottish audience.
After the interval, we were treated to a performance of Gustav Holst’s extraordinary suite, ‘The Planets’, written in 1914-16. It was not performed until after the war, and the first public premiere was in London in November 1920. Holst had become fascinated by astrology, and so the idea of a suite of seven tone poems representing the known planets of the Solar System at that time was very appealing. However, we must not get carried away by the attraction of the idea of a systemic work, as, to some extent, the planets are a useful hook on to which we can attach the seven pieces, rather than a truly descriptive, through-composed unity.
In 1913, Holst had heard, for the first time, Stravinsky’s savage ‘Rite of Spring’ and Schoenberg’s ‘Five Orchestral Pieces’ and had been overwhelmed by the new sound world that these works had opened up. The gathering clouds and shadows of war that were building up over Europe at the time were also important catalysts to the composition of ‘The Planets’.
As we listened to the pounding rhythms and terrifying drum beats of the first movement, ‘Mars the Bringer of War’, one could not be oblivious to the continuing horrors of warfare, and man’s idiotic fixation with war to solve political problems. It was salutary to hear this music on the day that, at last, Israel and Hamas have decided to declare a ceasefire in Gaza, hopefully ending a period of ghastly killing and ruin.
I was going to write about how apt Holst’s music for Mars was in the context of the appalling slaughter of the First World War, when I learned that he had actually written the tone poem in the months before the outbreak of war in 1914. Nonetheless, it is one of the most grimly horrifying pieces of music ever written, and particularly astonishing in the context of Holst’s other music. The young Germans and Wayne Marshall gave it the full works and we were almost cowering in our seats. The transition to ‘Venus, the Bringer of Peace’, was doubly welcome, both as an antidote to war and a source of hope for us all. The contrast to Mars could not be greater, as the brass and timpani fall silent, like guns in a ceasefire. High strings and woodwind transport us to a world where harmony reigns and nothing is too loud, and here, the young musicians distinguished themselves in the immaculate precision of their playing, and the ethereal quality of their tone. All the solo instrumentals throughout the piece were played with panache and virtuosity, exhibiting a common self-confidence, inspired I think, by Wayne Marshall’s conducting. You could tell how much they wanted to be good for him, fortunately to our benefit.
The idyll of Venus was interrupted gently by the arrival of Mercury, the Winged Messenger, who brought us good news in 6/8 time.
As the central movement, Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, is the most English section of the work. For ages, I believed this section to be a work by Edward Elgar, so noble and pastoral in mood and sonic effect that I assumed it had to be written by the composer of the ‘Enigma Variations’. Rolling hills, duck ponds and cricket on the village green come to mind when listening to jolly old Jupiter.
Having recently entered my 70th year, ‘Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age’, now holds a special place in my heart, and its measured and stately tread was reputedly a favourite of the composer, even though he was only 40. His daughter, Imogen Holst, who I met in her own old age at the Britten-Pears School in Snape in the late 70s, was convinced that this music represented the essence of her father, who went on to become a teacher and sometime composer, uninterested in the trappings of fame and popularity. Needless to say, the orchestra perfectly captured this mood of sedate unpretentiousness.
A final outbreak of humour and frivolity occurs with the arrival of ‘’Uranus, the Magician’, with hints of Dukas’ ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ and loud statements by the brass and timpani. It was brilliant to see the commitment of the German timpanists as they hammered away at their drums!
Suddenly all this bluster dissipates in the ethereal ‘Neptune, The Mystic’, a movement of almost complete tranquillity. The addition of an offstage female chorus, singing wordlessly from behind the doors of the Grand Circle, brings the whole composition to an end, fading away to silence. This was followed by thunderous applause, and many a Whoop and Holler from the younger members of the audience.
We were rewarded by an extensive encore of Wayne Marshall’s ‘Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis’, conducted by their choirmaster, written for St George’s, Windsor, which gave the ladies of the German-British Choir Academy a chance to sing more than pianissimo ‘ah’ vowels, and allowed Wayne Marshall to show what a fine organist he is. His charismatic figure dominated the entire performance and made the afternoon particularly special.
