An orchestra is by definition a place of encounter: dozens of musicians bring their instrument, their training and their musical personality together to create something that no one can achieve alone. But what happens when not individual musicians, but two youth orchestras meet each other? The Orchestra of the Americas and the Penderecki Youth Orchestra provide a convincing answer during Young Euro Classic on Monday, August 10: on the stage of the Konzerthaus Berlin, after just one week of rehearsals, they prove capable of forming a remarkably cohesive orchestra.
That encounter does not begin on stage. Some of the young musicians of the Orchestra of the Americas initially knew each other only via Zoom and came together physically for the first time in Poland. You can get to know each other through a screen, but only when you sit next to each other do you hear how someone breathes and how quickly another musician reacts.
That process fits the character of the orchestra: the musicians, between eighteen and thirty years old, are selected annually from approximately six thousand candidates for eighty positions, and since its founding in 2002, the ensemble has already performed more than four hundred concerts in over 35 countries. The Penderecki Youth Orchestra, founded in 2013 from the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music in Lusławice, brings a distinctly Polish and European component to this. On the stage of the Konzerthaus, musical experiences from different parts of America and Europe come together.
Penderecki as a connecting figure
The concert opens with the festival hymn by Iván Fischer (°1951), performed by the winds – somewhat rough, but this short, festive greeting can handle that. Then it becomes quiet and the sound world changes completely with Ciaccona in memoria Giovanni Paolo II by Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020), a work in memory of Pope John Paul II and later incorporated into the Polnisches Requiem. Penderecki builds the work around the old form of the chaconne, in which a recurring bass model carries the music while the tension increasingly intensifies.
Before that structure can even be analyzed, the warm, homogeneous sound of the strings stands out. There is a deep feeling in it that lets the Ciaccona sound not as a compositional exercise, but as a truly heartfelt farewell. For the young Polish musicians, who carry the name of the composer not only on their orchestra folder but also on their institution, the work thereby takes on a special, almost symbolic significance.
A surprising interpretation
And then Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). Sometimes you hear a work so often that you think you know it after decades – and then you sit in the hall one evening and the first movement suddenly seems like a completely different work. That happened to me with this performance of Brahms' Third Symphony. The first movement was taken exceptionally broadly: no dramatic haste, no emphasis on the heroic, but a warm summer evening glow that let the music breathe very intensely. It took some getting used to, but the longer the movement lasted, the more that choice revealed itself as a melodic richness that had escaped me until then.
Astonishing was how quickly these two orchestras had developed such a homogeneous, warm sound: the deeper strings gave an intense glow, and the instrumental groups stood nowhere as separate blocks alongside each other. Even in the hushed passages that Prieto introduced, the music remained perfectly audible, as did the pizzicatos. The woodwinds were given plenty of space for beautiful, characterful solos. That same tendency continued in the Andante and the Poco allegretto – delightful enjoyment, without needing something to constantly happen in order to still have something to say.
In the finale, the familiar fire returned: more dramatic, fiercer and ideal to conclude in this way, still classically. A particularly strong inspiration was the placement of the brass players together, instead of spreading the horns opposite the rest of the brass in different corners. This way the brass could speak as one block instead of fighting against itself, and that worked incredibly well here.
It clicked between Carlos Miguel Prieto and both orchestras, something that was already felt during the conversations that afternoon. Prieto had said then that for him the process above all mattered; the concert itself was the crowning achievement, the festive finale of the hard work that preceded it. After this Brahms, you understood what he meant. For me, the symphony experienced a true rebirth that evening – not because the work sounded radically different, but because time, warmth, silence and breath were laid into the music.
Impetuousness trumps
After the intermission, the mood changes completely. Prieto briefly introduces La noche de los Mayas by Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) and says that this generation gives him hope for the future – a simple remark that takes on added meaning after everything that preceded it. He has the percussionists introduce themselves and their instruments one by one, and by the time everyone is seated again, you know: something awaits us here.
What follows is a pure musical feast. The work originated in 1939 as film music and was only assembled into the well-known four-part orchestral suite in 1960 by José Yves Limantour. The percussion receives an exceptionally prominent place, with among others bongos, congas, guiro, rattles, tom-toms, teponaxtles, huehuetl, caracol, tam-tam and xylophone. Especially the caracol – the shell that serves as a wind instrument – stands out in both sight and sound, along with the wooden teponaxtles and the large huehuetl drum.
What particularly struck me was how physically the musicians responded to the music. They didn't sit still behind their music stands, but moved along in their chairs, as if Revueltas' rhythmicity was not only in their hands, but in their whole bodies. And that applied not only to the musicians of the Orchestra of the Americas: the young Polish players had also visibly made this Mexican rhythmic language their own. Nowhere did it sound as if one group was playing the music of the other. Two orchestras that had been largely strangers to each other just weeks earlier were making music here with the same drive and the same alertness.
Important in this regard: with so many percussionists, it would have been easy to turn it into a demonstration of orchestral power, but that doesn't happen. The sections respond sharply to each other and the rhythmic exuberance never loses its edge. The second movement ends with a small flourish that the audience immediately receives with a laugh; the timpani player is also a pleasure to watch, while the balance between the sections is carefully maintained. Also lovely are some flute solos that rise as light, almost playful lines above the rhythmic foundation.
In the fourth movement this becomes even more impressive: it's fascinating to see all those variations in the percussion apparatus emerge and at the same time to hear how musically they are embedded. The strings are not always equally audible, but this hardly detracts from the whole – the power lies in the way the layers together form a continuously changing rhythmic landscape.
It's a completely different orchestral world than Brahms, but the underlying quality remains the same: it's about listening, only the language has changed from breath and phrase to rhythm and color – in Revueltas a breath that is more rhythmic, more physical and more exuberant.
A city that dances ceaselessly
Prieto also briefly explains Antrópolis by Gabriela Ortiz (°1964). The title is a neologism in which antro, the Spanish designation for bars and nightclubs, resonates and refers to the sound of Mexico City and the energy of an urban, nocturnal world – a musical journey through the dance halls and nightclubs where different styles come together.
What immediately stands out is how much Ortiz transforms the orchestra here into almost a dance band. The percussion section has an impressive arsenal – including timpani, bongos, marimba, vibraphone, drum set, claves, cowbell, maracas, guiro and vibraslap – while the strings lay down a rhythmic foundation and wood and brass place short, energetic exclamations and melodic fragments above it. The timpani receive a striking solo role at the beginning and subsequently function as a link between the movements. The music constantly changes shape, but never loses its coherence anywhere.
After the orchestral glow of Brahms and the explosive rhythmicity of Revueltas, Antrópolis is not a simple continuation, but a further acceleration: a contemporary language in which dance, nightlife and urban rhythm merge into each other. The German premiere thus gains something irresistible – again with much rhythmic energy, but always sustained by precision rather than pure display.
Young talent without borders
Young Euro Classic presented here not simply two youth orchestras who happen to share the same stage, but a situation where young musicians actually need each other. It is also significant that the program does not end with Brahms, but with Ortiz: the European tradition is the starting point, not the endpoint. Penderecki and Brahms open the evening, Revueltas brings Mexico in, and Ortiz shows how a contemporary composer continues with that history.
For me, that thought took its most restrained form in Penderecki, its most surprising in Brahms, its most festive in Revueltas and its most dancing in Ortiz – four very different musical worlds, supported by two youth orchestras whose musicians had only truly gotten to know each other shortly before. That is precisely where the significance of this evening lay: two orchestras that were not simply merged together, but found one common voice.
Prior to this concert, four young musicians from both orchestras already discussed their collaboration and the program – you can read that interview here: https://klassiek-centraal.be/musici-uit-heel-amerika-en-europa-een-klank-orchestra-of-the-americas-en-penderecki-youth-orchestra-vinden-elkaar-bij-young-euro-classic/
An interview with conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto can be read here: https://klassiek-centraal.be/muziek-is-een-absolute-barometer-van-het-leven-in-gesprek-met-dirigent-carlos-miguel-prieto/