The National Youth Orchestra's programming usually sees them engaging in challenging repertoire, and their Prom under Antonio Pappano was no exception. Their first work, Edgard Varèse's Amériques, is a 1920s classic that draws heavily on The Rite of Spring, adapting Stravinsky's modernist gestures to a phantasmagoric cityscape and celebrating the spirit of limitless adventure that the New World symbolised for the composer. Under Pappano's taut direction, the young players hurled themselves enthusiastically at its rip-roaring invention, which built to a climax of infallible cumulative power.

Next came the wallflower among Rachmaninov's piano concertos, his Fourth - a piece whose ambiguous material requires harder selling than that of any of his other major works. It was fortunate here in its soloist, the Russian virtuoso Boris Berezovsky. He cleared every technical hurdle with ease, but his finest moments came in the refined intimacy of his softer playing. The string section's glamorous yet veiled tone in the slow movement was also a highlight.

The ensemble was not quite so precise in Copland's Third Symphony, and some brass players' lips were starting to get tired. Written at the end of the second world war, it is a piece whose populism has not worn as well as the Fanfare for the Common Man, which Copland recycled in the finale. But the enthusiasm of the players prevented the music's wide-eyed innocence from solidifying into a fixed grin, and Pappano's unfailing commitment kept it in the air.