Percy Grainger was not short of peculiarities, such as performing in his self-designed towelling outfits and pushing his favourite piano stool around in a wheelbarrow. But only Grainger could do something as bizarre as write a vast composition for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes without Diaghilev knowing anything about it.
Grainger’s “music to an imaginary ballet”, The Warriors, is a glaring anomaly. Most of the Australian composer’s pieces were miniatures of a few minutes’ duration. The Warriors is a turbulent half-hour in which the instrumentation includes a gamelan, three grand pianos (Grainger specified these could be trebled if space allowed) and an additional phalanx of offstage brass whose role is to sound as if they are playing an entirely different piece in another room.
It’s in situations like these that the National Youth Orchestra comes into its own. Given such extensive and enthusiastic resources, and the exceptional clarity of Ilan Volkov’s conducting, Grainger’s dense and violent scoring gained a colossal impact that reinforced the impression that The Warriors is the sound of a musical bomb going off and showering its listeners with shrapnel.
Unsuk Chin’s new commission, Mannequin, is a sequence of musical tableaux inspired by ETA Hoffmann’s macabre version of the Sandman myth, in which the protagonist witnesses the automaton he has fallen in love with dismembered by its creator. Chin’s disconcerting, necrotic harmonies and softly whirring clockwork percussion were fairly enigmatic; but while most kids of the NYO’s age are probably more familiar with Metallica’s version, I’d wager this was far scarier.
Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra is perhaps the ultimate showcase for a band such as the NYO. Every section more than carried its weight, but if I had to pick out a highlight, it would be the dark brass chorale at the beginning of the second movement. Brass-playing of such sensuousness and security is rare, even among top-flight professional orchestras. Once again, these phenomenally talented teenagers show themselves to be a marvel.
• 10 April. Box office: 0844 871 7649. Venue: Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent; 11 April. Box office: 0844 875 0073. Venue: Royal Festival Hall, London.
• Concert available to listen to on BBC iPlayer
