[attach id=267826 size="medium"]It was amazing to watch Carmine Lauri engage with the orchestra and almost converse with its members.[/attach]
It started off quietly, then built up very slowly, until by the end of it, the audience was worked up into a frenzy. Well, perhaps not quite into a frenzy, but the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) and Malta Youth Orchestra (MYO) joint concert certainly got people dancing in their seats.
The MYO perhaps needs a little introduction. It was set up in 2004 as an experiment to give young orchestral musicians vital experience in orchestral playing. The orchestra was then formally launched in 2011, and has already quite a number of concerts to its credit.
The project is one of many run by the MPO, and has Mro Joseph Vella as its artistic director. Musicians are chosen not by age but according to level. They also engage external help occasionally, and for this concert Andre Paul Huber worked as an assistant to the conductor.
Apart from that, the MYO also joins forces with the MPO occasionally, giving these young musicians the opportunity to work alongside professional musicians. This time round, they also had the opportunity of working with conductor Peter Stark and Carmine Lauri as leader. It does not get much better than that.
Sharp and energetic, everything one would expect from an all-professional orchestra
The evening started off with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. I wasn’t particularly engaged by this work, but I have heard professional orchestras perform it where it just does not seem to get off the ground. There were also a few technical hitches with sound, which though solved quickly, somehow distracted the orchestra. One also has to admit that Mendelssohn milked the opening motif to death.
Despite the cautious beginning, the pace picked up for Delibes’ Coppélia Suite No. 1. This was vibrant and thoroughly enjoyable. It also gave the orchestra ample opportunity to show off, with lots of virtuoso passages across the ensemble. It was also great to watch Stark dancing away to the music, and he soon had both orchestra and audience swaying to the beat.
It was also amazing to watch Lauri engage with the orchestra and almost converse with its members. There were cameras all around the orchestra, which broadcast close-ups of the musicians on a big screen. This gave the audience an opportunity to watch them in action, something the space itself does not really allow.
William Walton’s Spitfire Prelude and Fugue (a work derived from the soundtrack to the wartime film The First of the Few) was one of the most polished and enjoyable items on the programme. It was sharp and energetic, and had everything one would expect from an all-professional orchestra.
Of course, this is not to say that the other items were not up to standard. It’s just that the Walton piece had that extra ‘oomph’ that made it just wonderful. Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld also had plenty of ‘oomph’, which in the final Cancan also came complete with (metaphorically) frilly skirts, suspenders and plenty of legs.
Next up was Johann Strauss II’s Thunder and Lightening Polka, which again came fully choreographed by orchestra and conductor alike.
The concert was rounded off nicely with John Williams’ Raiders March, or as it is popularly known, “that trumpety tune from Indiana Jones”. Pity it was an open-air concert, or I would have said that it brought the house down. As a little extra treat, the orchestra played a little bit of the Pirates of the Carribean soundtrack.
This was an absolutely delightful concert, of which I hope we get more of, perhaps enhanced with little parrot-on-shoulder pirate costumes for the musicians for the encore.
Well, actually forget that thought. No sane parrot would ever want to sit on the tuba player’s shoulder, nor risk being beaten to a pulp by an over-enthusiastic percussion player.