0:00:05 > 0:00:07Tonight's Prom is played by the youngest
0:00:07 > 0:00:09but best rehearsed orchestra of the whole Prom season.
0:00:09 > 0:00:12They are the largest orchestral collective you will see
0:00:12 > 0:00:15at the Royal Albert Hall this summer, yet they are playing
0:00:15 > 0:00:17a programme which is as much about individual virtuosity
0:00:17 > 0:00:19as it is about what they can do together.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22We're going to see the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24all of them 18 years old or younger,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28conducted by a youthful British conductor too, Edward Gardner.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Now, there's nowhere to hide in the music they are playing tonight -
0:00:31 > 0:00:34in Witold Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra,
0:00:34 > 0:00:36in Sergei Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto,
0:00:36 > 0:00:38or in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka -
0:00:38 > 0:00:42there's no symphonic padding to disguise your mistakes.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46Instead, this music has to be a blaze of colour, of character,
0:00:46 > 0:00:48of drama, so the pressure is on.
0:00:48 > 0:00:53These musicians have got to make every moment count and communicate.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55Tonight, these masterworks, then, are in the hands
0:00:55 > 0:00:59of the country's finest, youngest musicians at the Proms.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32Petrushka, the story of a puppet show whose three characters
0:01:32 > 0:01:37are magicked into life during a Russian carnival, a Shrovetide fair.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41The Moor, The Ballerina and Petrushka himself are involved
0:01:41 > 0:01:45in a surreal love triangle, which is told in four scenes or tableaux.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48And Stravinsky throws down the gauntlet to his musicians.
0:01:48 > 0:01:49Tonight, the 160 musicians
0:01:49 > 0:01:52of the National Youth Orchestra Of Great Britain,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55to really get inside the drama of this music,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59to become everything from dancing bears to strange magicians,
0:01:59 > 0:02:02from hurdy-gurdy players to Russian folk singers.
0:02:02 > 0:02:07And each section of this orchestra is essential to the story.
0:02:08 > 0:02:11Woodwinds. First tableau, Russian Dance.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31Strings. Fourth tableau, Dance of the Gypsies.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Trumpets. The very end, The Ghost of Petrushka.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42We'll hear the original opulently scored version
0:03:42 > 0:03:44when it was premiered by the Ballets Russes in Paris
0:03:44 > 0:03:48and these players on the Royal Albert Hall stage behind me
0:03:48 > 0:03:52have got to give every ounce of their technique and their musicality
0:03:52 > 0:03:55to this crazy, colourful cavalcade,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58to quicken the inanimate puppet of the score,
0:03:58 > 0:04:03black dots of notes on the page, into living, breathing experience.
0:04:03 > 0:04:13You know, the very last thing that tonight's conductor,
0:04:13 > 0:04:16That's the challenge that they are going to take up right now.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20APPLAUSE
0:38:43 > 0:38:45APPLAUSE
0:38:57 > 0:38:59CHEERING
0:39:04 > 0:39:08APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
0:39:31 > 0:39:33Something happened in that performance.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35I mean, the spectacular colour in Petrushka,
0:39:35 > 0:39:37all that... the Shrovetide fair,
0:39:37 > 0:39:40even the kind of cartoon-like comedy that Stravinsky creates,
0:39:40 > 0:39:43but it wasn't just spectacular, it wasn't just some technicolour riot.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46The colour became emotion, you care about what happened to Petrushka.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49And that's the thing - the fate of this puppet
0:39:49 > 0:39:51becomes more real than real life.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55It matters more than the human world around it.
0:39:55 > 0:39:56There's more Russian music
0:39:56 > 0:39:59in the piece we are going to hear next tonight,
0:39:59 > 0:40:03a piece that was premiered just a year after Petrushka, in 1912.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07It was composed by a prodigiously gifted 21-year-old student
0:40:07 > 0:40:09at the St Petersburg Conservatory.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12Sergei Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15a piece he originally wrote for himself to perform.
0:40:15 > 0:40:17It's going to be played tonight by the pianist Louis Schwizgebel,
0:40:17 > 0:40:21who is making his very first appearance here at the BBC Proms
0:40:21 > 0:40:23with this ferociously difficult music.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27Now, Louis started to explain this concerto to me
0:40:27 > 0:40:30by thinking about another composer.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33For example, the beginning, those chords. I mean...
0:40:37 > 0:40:39It reminds a little bit of the...
0:40:39 > 0:40:42It's almost like a part of the Tchaikovsky concerto.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44The Tchaikovsky First Piano... HE HUMS THE TUNE
0:40:44 > 0:40:47Yeah. So, what does he do, how does the tune continue?
0:40:47 > 0:41:10Well, the Tchaikovsky...
0:41:10 > 0:41:12but it's basically a bit like that.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15So, what were the most challenging things, then, in learning this piece
0:41:15 > 0:41:18for, after all, what is your Proms debut this evening?
0:41:18 > 0:41:21I think one of the most challenging things
0:41:21 > 0:41:23is right after this huge start,
0:41:23 > 0:41:26you have the orchestra, like a very small introduction,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29and then suddenly they completely stop
0:41:29 > 0:41:34and the piano is playing almost a kind of exercise, like you have...
0:41:41 > 0:41:48You are alone and you have these...these scales
0:41:51 > 0:41:53It... You feel suddenly naked and you have to...
0:41:53 > 0:41:58to play this without pedals and it's very... It's also very funny.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00So there's all this virtuosity in this piece,
0:42:00 > 0:42:02but there's also a big range of colour.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05I mean, the lyrical music in the middle section, for example.
0:42:05 > 0:42:07Yes, absolutely.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11The second movement is absolutely amazing, it's very lyrical,
0:42:11 > 0:42:17but also magical and, I would say, phantasmagoric.
0:42:17 > 0:42:24When you have the piano come in...
0:42:35 > 0:42:47All those colours and it's absolutely...
0:58:23 > 0:58:27APPLAUSE
0:58:37 > 0:58:39CHEERING
0:59:30 > 0:59:34CHEERING
1:04:49 > 1:04:51APPLAUSE
1:05:10 > 1:05:15Well, the Prommers wanted more and Louis Schwizgebel gave them it.
1:05:15 > 1:05:17His encore was Liszt's arrangement,
1:05:17 > 1:05:20really an explosion of Schubert's song Standchen.
1:05:20 > 1:05:23And just as Prokofiev's Concerto inspired four sequels,
1:05:23 > 1:05:25he wrote five piano concertos in all,
1:05:25 > 1:05:28you can't help feeling that Louis Schwizgebel's Proms debut
1:05:28 > 1:05:31could be the first of many appearances
1:05:31 > 1:05:33here at the Royal Albert Hall.
1:05:33 > 1:05:35Well, from that concerto for solo piano
1:05:35 > 1:05:37to a concerto for all the players -
1:05:37 > 1:05:40Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra,
1:05:40 > 1:05:42written in 1954.
1:05:42 > 1:05:46Now, this is music of hugely colouristic and communicative power.
1:05:46 > 1:05:50It's full of, em, earworm-like tunes,
1:05:50 > 1:05:52melodies that are instantly indelible
1:05:52 > 1:05:55and it is propelled by a driving musical momentum.
1:05:55 > 1:05:58From the very first music you hear menacing rhythms
1:05:58 > 1:06:00all the way through to its triumphant conclusion.
1:06:00 > 1:06:04The last and biggest of its three movements is the hardest to play,
1:06:04 > 1:06:07the most varied, the most challenging and demanding
1:06:07 > 1:06:09for this orchestra and their conductor,
1:06:09 > 1:06:11so how will Ed Gardner
1:06:11 > 1:06:13and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain players
1:06:13 > 1:06:16navigate this tumultuous music?
1:06:16 > 1:06:19Well, I went to Birmingham to rehearsals.
1:06:19 > 1:06:21In this piece, once you have the balance,
1:06:21 > 1:06:23there is this common momentum about it.
1:06:23 > 1:06:27I mean, shall I show you a little bit of...? Yeah, sure.
1:06:27 > 1:06:29I mean, I would... I would say that the sort of...
1:06:29 > 1:06:31the lace around the music, the interest,
1:06:31 > 1:06:33is often not in the melody.
1:06:33 > 1:06:35Just take the trombones and the clarinet
1:06:35 > 1:06:37and the flutes and piccolos at 87.
1:06:37 > 1:06:39And listen to what these high winds have
1:06:39 > 1:06:41because that gives the music its energy.
1:06:49 > 1:06:52That's it. And I think when you hear this stuff here,
1:06:52 > 1:06:56with all this massive choir of flutes and piccolos and clarinets,
1:06:56 > 1:06:58that's when it starts to really sound like Lutoslawski,
1:06:58 > 1:07:00sound like that extraordinary colour.
1:07:00 > 1:07:02I mean, it's incredibly loud here,
1:07:02 > 1:07:05being right in the middle of the woodwind with the brass behind.
1:07:05 > 1:07:07Is it question of how you all hear each other?
1:07:07 > 1:07:10I mean, is that something you're trying to get this orchestra to do?
1:07:10 > 1:07:11Yes, I would say yes.
1:07:11 > 1:07:15There is a very big difference between doing this Lutoslawski piece,
1:07:15 > 1:07:18which is fundamentally quite rhythmic right the way through,
1:07:18 > 1:07:21and something like Petrushka at the other end of our programme,
1:07:21 > 1:07:23which is all about listening to solos
1:07:23 > 1:07:25and finding as much chamber music as possible.
1:07:25 > 1:07:28Let's put this together and if we can hear all that detail,
1:07:28 > 1:07:31suddenly the music starts to fizz and feel a lot more interesting.
1:07:31 > 1:07:33Let's take it from two before 86
1:07:33 > 1:07:36and I threatened the violas they'd have to stand in the concert
1:07:36 > 1:07:39unless this is really fortissimo, so, Tom, you can be the judge. TOM LAUGHS
1:07:39 > 1:07:42But all strings, you need to feel like the fortissimo
1:07:42 > 1:07:44is soloistic and really strong.
1:08:27 > 1:08:30Yeah, yeah, good, excellent. And it feels...
1:08:30 > 1:08:32Once you start to hear the detail around the melody,
1:08:32 > 1:08:35the music kind of opens out and you can really feel...
1:08:35 > 1:08:38He's like no-one else. I mean, his writing.
1:08:38 > 1:08:41The amount of colour he manages to put in every bar is miraculous.
1:08:41 > 1:08:44I heard the violas too, by the way. It was fantastic. It was epic...
1:08:44 > 1:08:47Yeah, but you are quite close, you're quite close to them.
1:08:47 > 1:08:50Even stronger! True, no, fair enough, fair enough, but no...
1:08:50 > 1:08:53Play for me, brass, horns, drums, timps.
1:08:53 > 1:08:57And play with sharper accents, not softer, but sharper accents
1:08:57 > 1:08:59and a bit more release
1:08:59 > 1:09:01and then we hear the wildness of these half beats.
1:09:01 > 1:09:03Five before 91, everyone.
1:09:20 > 1:09:23Yeah. And you feel you've got to an end of a piece
1:09:23 > 1:09:26and then we start another journey, ramping up to another coda.
1:09:26 > 1:09:27It's endless, this last movement.
1:16:10 > 1:16:12APPLAUSE
1:22:09 > 1:22:11APPLAUSE
1:37:26 > 1:37:29CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:38:07 > 1:38:11It's a vindication of what you can do with absolute kind of un...
1:38:11 > 1:38:16totally distilled, concentrated energy that all of the players have,
1:38:16 > 1:38:19absolutely every individual, all 150,
1:38:19 > 1:38:22however many there were up there, giving absolutely everything.
1:38:22 > 1:38:25The effect, musically speaking, not just as a show,
1:38:25 > 1:38:28not just that as an exploration of colour but as an explosion of...
1:38:28 > 1:38:31well, a kind of joy in the Royal Albert Hall.
1:38:31 > 1:38:33That... That's what that performance was.
1:38:33 > 1:38:37CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUES