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Earlier this year, we heard the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) in one of its summer school dresses in a concert that featured some very taut, impressive playing.

Now we had the orchestra playing at its traditional mid-year time and, again, we heard some very fine playing. Maybe, with less rehearsal time, the ensemble was not quite as razor-sharp but still, it was distinctly impressive music making.

It helped having the very fine Spanish conductor Jaime Martin at the helm, and under his direction everything was most idiomatically played. Not surprisingly, de Falla’s suites from the Three-Cornered Hat sparkled with Spanish fire and colour, with notably crisp playing from the brass.

Andre Jolivet’s short Bassoon Concerto was superbly played by Todd GibsonCornish, the young principal bassoonist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and a former player in the National Youth Orchestra. With strings, harp and piano backing him, he revealed a quirky, very French work that seemed a little out of its time – 1954 – when the modernism of Pierre Boulez ruled the roost, and he played brilliantly.

NYO composer in residence Josiah Carr gave us a brief, highly atmospheric and occasionally dramatic reflection on the trees of Whakarearewa Forest with Redwood – a most compelling piece of sound painting.

Maybe the final work, Stravinsky’s 1945 suite from his Firebird, had the most rehearsal time, but it offered the evening’s finest playing. This was brilliantly done, from the most delicate half tones to the dramatic brilliance of Katschei’s Dance and the splendour of the finale, this was the NYO at its spontaneous best.