Light of the world

Heck, you might think, that's a bit steep as an epithet for young talent. But I challenge you to find a curmudgeon who didn't come out of either of the Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra of Venezuela's concerts last week floating on air. The photos by our top man Chris Christodoulou catch it all very well, as usual.

Was a bit surprised to see nice Fiona Maddocks's qualification in yesterday's Observer that normal standards didn't apply, given the huge size of the orchestra, whereafter - it may have been subbing - she added no word about their Tchaikovsky Fifth under Christian Vasquez. The point is that, as I wrote in my Arts Desk review, I found it stunning by any standards - disciplined, flexible, profound and, of course, thrilling with all those strings including the much-mentioned 13 double basses going full pelt at Tchaik's finale battle-drill. The TCYO is heading in the direction of its big brother, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which is now one of the great orchestras of the world, under Abbado at least, but it need have no fears of feeling inferior, just a desire to aspire to the same extraordinary standards.

Some folk moan that we get the same old Ginastera and Bernstein Mambo encores, that the chucking of the jackets and the conga-ing around are routine. I'd argue that it's the ritual party the kids need after working so bloody hard on their very tough programmes. That's a joy you can't fake.


How I wish I'd heard their Prokofiev Fifth on Tuesday, too (I couldn't: I was taking the BBCSO students through Grainger/Delius/Joseph Taylor and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring). There they'd already had the advantage of Sir Si taking them through it in Berlin. But don't underestimate Vasquez: he's more self-effacing in demeanour than Dudamel, but seems just as sure of what he wants and how to get it. Indeed, as Rattle famously said a few years ago, this is the most important thing going on in the world of music, and by inference it's up there with the most positive things going on in the world, period. The potential for good is limitless, and look at all the kids who've been inspired already.


More background on the Carrenos, and the Sistema experience, from my Arts Desk colleague Kate Connolly.

In praise of Percy

No innuendo is intended, though given Percy Grainger's voracious and distinctly dodgy sexual obsessions it could be. Anyway, I'm currently deep in a bout of Graingermania. This has been quite a week for hearing great stuff I've never come across in the concert hall before. Saturday was the Alpine peak, perhaps of the year: Martinu's most consistently powerful symphony, the Third, in the penultimate instalment of Belohlavek's BBCSO Martinu symphonies cycle. Thanks, Thomas and Hedgehog, for 'spreading the love around' in your comments to the previous entry. But what led to a more recent re-discovery was maverick Swede Bengt Forsberg's inclusion of Grainger's To a Nordic Princess as the first of his two encores in last Wednesday's recital.

As a result, I dug out my CDs of Martin Jones and the man himself in all the works Grainger 'dished up for piano', and I started reading John Bird's biography. Bird's prose makes for very sober reading alongside the mad screeds of Percy himself, but still, what a life! Even before he appears in the world, there's crazy Rose, the mother from hell, wishing good thoughts on her unborn child by banishing her hapless hubby from the boudoir and fixating on a statue of Apollo at the end of the bed. Whatever problems Percy subsequently had - not least the appalling flagellation which he openly wrote about wishing to apply to small children, so thank God he had none of his own - can be laid at Rose's door. Peter Carey should write a novel about the relationship between those two; maybe Jane Campion could make a film of it.

The fact remains, though, that for all his psychobluster and inconsistencies, PG seems to have been a natural man, the freshest of composers and a master pianist. I'm now listening to his performance of Chopin's Third Piano Sonata, and I reckon the slow movement is my favourite now, while the finale is the most vivacious ever. What a shame there's not more film of his playing; I could only come up with this less than minute clip from a documentary. It's worth seeing, if only for the extraordinary flying motion.



Grainger was inspired by Eugen D'Albert during his student time in Frankfurt: 'when I saw D'Albert swash around over the piano with the wrong notes flying to the left & right & the whole thing a welter of recklessness, I said to myself, "That;s the way I must play". I'm afraid I learnt his propensity for wrong notes all too thoroughly.'

As for his own compositions, I was knocked for six by the In a Nutshell Suite, where cowpat pastorale goes off the rails into Schoenberg/Ives territory, and then on for another six glorious minutes. Had a YouTube clip of Grainger's deepest slow movement in its orchestral version conducted by Rattle, but I now see that's been removed 'due to third party infringement'. Shame.

I worked out that next February will be the fiftieth anniversary of Grainger's death. I don't see his bracing and prolific output featuring in any of the major orchestras' rep, but let's see what happens.