So, after all the buzz about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra altering the audition process forever, after months of interactive computer chat about the worlds first collaborative online orchestra, after 96 winning players were selected from among the more than 3,000 musicians who submitted audition videos and were brought to New York for a group summit and Carnegie Hall concert, how did the YouTube Symphony Orchestra finally play?
Quite well, actually, from what could be assessed during the three-hour concert the orchestra presented on Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, mostly conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The program was a potpourri, just movements and excerpts from 15 wildly diverse works.
The mixed-bag repertory was intentional, Mr. Thomas explained in introducing the program. With the chosen musicians coming from more than 30 different countries and vastly different backgrounds, the program needed to touch as many eras and styles as possible, he said. So there was everything from a Renaissance canzon for brass by Gabrieli to a new, hard-driving piece for orchestra and electronica by Mason Bates.
For those of us hoping to discover what an orchestra of eager and gifted players could accomplish in just a few days work, it was frustrating to hear the YouTube Symphony play only single movements from two staples: the joyous third movement of Brahmss Fourth Symphony, to start the program, and the impetuous, blazing finale of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, to conclude it.
It may have been frustrating for many of the musicians as well. In the Tchaikovsky, especially, Mr. Thomas pushed them to the hilt, with breathless tempos and full-throttled dynamics. Though a little rough and ready, the performance had drive, color and passion.
Subtlety? Well, that takes more rehearsal time. The orchestra had basically two days to work. Monday they rehearsed from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., which is what a conductor can do when freed from union work rules with an ensemble of unpaid players.
But the idea, however, was to bring together musicians from outside the professional orchestra loop, and at that the project was a breakthrough, or so it seemed from the video interviews with several for the players that were shown between the pieces on the program.
There was Soo-Young Lee, a clarinetist from South Korea, now working in Austria, whose sincere belief that music is the universal language would wither any cynic. And George Dunham, an experienced cellist who makes his living as a professional poker-player in Reno, Nev.
The project is worthy, and in ways inspiring.
