Working up a fair storm of sea spray

Flying Dutchman Overture - Wagner La mer - Debussy Symphony No 4 -

Brahms

The National Youth Orchestra ended its short summer tour at the

National Concert Hall on Saturday. The occasion marked the debut with the orchestra of Roland Kieft, a Dutch conductor in his late thirties, who has worked widely in the Netherlands as well as elsewhere in Europe and in the US.

Under his direction, the orchestra worked up a fair storm of sea spray in Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture. There were some signs here of sour tuning in the wind section though, happily, these did not recur as intrusively in any of the evening's other works.

This orchestra's programming has long favoured Russian and German repertoire. It was good, therefore, to see the sea theme of the first half of this concert being continued through Debussy's altogether more subtly evocative La mer. Kieft here took good account of the stylistic leap from Wagner and guided his young players with a firm and sensitive hand.

The first two movements of Brahms's Fourth Symphony were delivered with directness and warmth. But the third movement became a bit of a scramble at the conductor's excessively fast tempo. And he pressed hard, too, in the finale, producing a driven, relentless excitement.