Hoopes, National Youth Orchestra, Järvi, RFH

HOOPES, NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA, JÄRVI, RFH Adrenalin rushes plus sophistication in fire music by Stravinsky and Daugherty

Adrenalin rushes plus sophistication in fire music by Stravinsky and Daugherty

On the panel to judge a competition between 14 Dutch school orchestras in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw last month, I couldn't resist using my speech to compare their state-school provenance with our own divisive musical education. I was thinking of two figures I'd been given – that when the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain started, only five per cent of its young musicians were from private and public schools, whereas now it was 85 per cent.

Capuçon, RPO, Dutoit, Royal Festival Hall

CAPUCON, RPO, DUTOIT, ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL Varied programme presented with dramatic immediacy and vivid colours

Varied programme presented with dramatic immediacy and vivid colours

Charles Dutoit gets the best from the Royal Philharmonic. He conducts with broad, sweeping gestures, and the orchestra responds with dramatic immediacy and vivid colours. This concert’s programme was well chosen to play to their shared strengths, and the results were impressive: colourful Respighi, muscular Dvořák and taut, compelling Stravinsky.

Davies, BBCSO, Knussen, Barbican

DAVIES, BBCSO, KNUSSEN, BARBICAN Impressive George Benjamin premiere outshone by classic Stravinsky

Impressive George Benjamin premiere outshone by classic Stravinsky

Last night’s concert at the Barbican focused on the theme of dreams and night-time, centred around the UK premiere of Dream of the Song by George Benjamin. But the one piece on the programme that did not fit with the theme stole the show. Stravinsky’s American-period masterpiece Symphony in Three Movements supplied the energy and rhythmic impetus lacking elsewhere.

Kelemen, BBCSO, Wigglesworth, Barbican

Video projections muddy the impact in Britten, but Stravinsky brings pearls

In the deep recesses of my brain lies a distant memory of an early lesson in musical appreciation in primary school. Excerpts from Beethoven’s "Pastoral" Symphony were being played. The teacher asked us what images came to mind. The answers came fairly quickly, prodded by the music’s title: a babbling brook, a thunderstorm, twittering birds. I was on my way.

Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel, RFH

Stravinsky ballet scores impressively articulated but with no whiff of greasepaint

So much black and red ink has been spilled about the infamous 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring that it’s easy to underestimate how radical the orchestration, at least, of its predecessor Petrushka must have sounded. It still usually comes up as fresh as poster paint. The chance to hear both scores in a single concert is rare indeed, but one thing we certainly didn’t get from Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela at the start of their latest Southbank mini-residency was the shock of the new.

Gomez, Osborne, Britten Sinfonia, Järvi, Milton Court

GOMEZ, OSBORNE, BRITTEN SINFONIA, JÄRVI, MILTON COURT No pizzazz about this jazz/classical melée

Six out of seven pieces going nowhere: no pizzazz about this jazz/classical melée

Don’t blame the players: they did their considerable best. But what could they hope to achieve with a programme in which six of the seven pieces were on a hiding to nowhere, or too short to have much of an impact? A sequence, what's more, in which platform rearrangements took longer than two of the pieces in the first half?

BCMG, Knussen, CBSO Centre Birmingham

BCMG, KNUSSEN, CBSO CENTRE BIRMINGHAM Personal tributes, farmyard fun and a jazz-inspired world premiere

Personal tributes, farmyard fun and a jazz-inspired world premiere

“The first section, following a short introduction, places a rhythmic sequence on its retrograde. The two layers are transposed independently (one going up, the other down) as the music progresses, and points of symmetry are highlighted when they occur”. No, me neither. Apparently Patrick Brennan’s Polly Roe also features a brief rhythmic quotation from Birtwistle’s Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum. More erudite ears may have been able to detect it.

Farewell to Stravinsky's right-hand man

FAREWELL TO STRAVINSKY'S RIGHT-HAND MAN Robert Craft, great Igor's guide to old and new music, has died at the age of 92

Robert Craft, great Igor's guide to old and new music, has died at the age of 92

Missionary angel or twelve-tone devil? Musical figures like Poulenc, perhaps too much attached to the diabolical element in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, were inclined to see the incursion of Robert Craft into Stravinsky’s Hollywood life in 1948 in demonic terms.