European Union Youth Orchestra

Alpine Symphony Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 5 September 1998

We took The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us to this one – the only Prom we did with The Duchess that year. She was partial to youth orchestras, so this Saturday evening concert was the obvious pick for The Duchess that year.

Janie and I lived to tell the tale.

Here is the BBC Proms stub for that concert.

We heard:

Andrew March – Marine – a Travers les Arbres
Alban Berg – Seven Early Songs
Richard Strauss – An Alpine Symphony, Op 64

I don’t think the pre-interval pieces went down so well with us, but we were all there really for The Alpine Symphony.

Hillevi Martinpelto gave the songs some proper soprano wellie.

It was a joy to see Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the European Union Youth Orchestra.

Here is The Telegraph review of that visit:

Prom 63 1998 07 Sep 1998, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Beethoven & Bruckner, European Community Youth Orchestra Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 9 September 1997

Another trip to the Proms with The Duchess (Janie’s mum) to see the European Community Youth Orchestra. The Duchess had a bit of a thing about youth orchestras.

This concert, under the baton of Bernard Haitink, was surely interesting if for no other reason than that. A great opportunity to see the great man.

We heard:

Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
Anton Bruckner – Symphony No 7 in E major

Emanual Ax tinkled the ivories in the first piece of the night.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this event.

I don’t think this was the best rendition of Bruckner 7 I have ever seen…nor even the best rendition by Haitink, as we returned three years later to see the great man perform the same piece again, with the Berlin Philharmonic that time…but I think the following panning by Rick Jones in the Standard is a bit unfair.