40 years of musical youth turned into a dog’s breakfast

BBC Young Musician 40th Anniversary Royal Albert Hall ★★★☆☆

Let’s be clear; the BBC Young Musician competition is a wonderful thing. It has launched the careers of quite a few musicians who are now mainstays of the scene.

But does that mean a Prom celebrating the competition’s 40th anniversary with 29 winners and finalists is a wonderful thing? It might have been, had the 29 players been given the stage to themselves in a “Chamber Prom” at Cadogan Hall. But the BBC wanted to make a splash in the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Albert Hall organ lending an air of prestige.

So what we had was a curious dog’s breakfast, with numerous short pieces that featured the orchestra plus five wind soloists, or four cellists, or four pianos. Pieces like that don’t actually exist, so the BBC had to commission several arrangements and new pieces.

The results weren’t always triumphant. Ian Farrington’s new arrangement of Saint-saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals for four pianists could have been played by any half-decent players. Giovanni Solima’s Violoncelles, Vibrez! was more taxing for four cellists, but that was all that could be said for it. The final piece, The Great Gate of Kiev from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Henry Wood’s arrangement, with extra brass and percussion, came badly adrift.

Still, there were some highlights. New piece Sidechaining, by US composer David Bruce, brought together oboist Nicholas Daniel (winner in 1980), clarinettist Michael Collins (1978), violinist Jennifer Pike (2002) and horn player Ben Goldscheider (finalist in 2016), in a piece that combined neoclassical wit with the huge energy of a tarantella.

See and hear this Prom for 30 days at bbc.co.uk/proms. The Proms continue until Sept 8. Hear them all on BBC Radio 3, or via the BBC iplayer Radio app.