November may be a time of mounting winter darkness and incoming seasonal depression, but it has sprung at least one welcome surprise – the first public performance of the season by the ADK Istanbul Youth Orchestra, an outfit of whose existence I was previously unaware. Their concert at the Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy on November 11 was a most encouraging sign that Western classical music performance in Turkey is inexorably on the rise, having passed the point of no return.

The ADK Orchestra, formed of students at various conservatoires, is the brainchild of Mr Ramis Sulu, its conductor. Its sponsor, meanwhile, is the Zehra Yıldız Foundation for Culture and the Arts, an organisation named after Zehra Yıldız (1956–97), a Turkish soprano who passed away after suffering a brain haemorrhage during a concert tour in Germany. The proceedings on November 11 began with a speech by Mr Caner Akın, on behalf of the Foundation, in which he described the institution’s goals and the history of its involvement with the orchestra.

The first half of the concert consisted of pieces for flute and orchestra in which the solo parts were played by Ms Aslıhan And. First, we heard the Nocturne for flute, piano and strings by Sergii Leontiev, a contemporary Ukrainian composer living in Los Angeles who specialises in film music, arranging and orchestration. I was immediately impressed by the quality of orchestra’s co-ordination with the soloist, as well as by its excellent intonation – a feature that I was pleased to see remained constant throughout the whole programme. I was less impressed, however, by the piece itself, which I found to be strong on audience appeal, but – perhaps as a consequence of this – devoid of any original features, especially in the harmony department. A performance of this work by And, in which she is accompanied by the Ukrainian String Orchestra, conducted by Christophe Rody, is available on YouTube.

Next up was the Solo de Concert No. 6 (Opus 82) by the French flautist and composer Jules Auguste Demersseman (1833–66). This work, sometimes known as his ‘Italian Concerto’, presented a good deal more for one to get one’s teeth into, so to speak. The arrival on stage of the woodwinds and horns was a welcome sight, promising as it did a fuller sound than had been the case in the previous work. I found the Solo de Concert, which began with a rousing march, to be a jolly affair, very French in its polished musical style and urbane mood but embellished with oodles of Italian references. And’s skills were comprehensively showcased in this three-movement work, and I admired both her dexterity in the fast-moving passages – especially in the fearsome cadenza – and the orchestra’s ability to come in on time, and at the right speed, after the frequent ‘stop-and-start’ changes of rhythm. (Credit must undoubtedly go to their conductor here.) Although the second movement began like an aria from an Italian opera, and the third struck me as being a straight crib from Rossini, the good humour that pervaded the whole piece made everything forgivable. Poor Monsieur Demersserman, whose early death is believed to have been due to tuberculosis, must have had at least some moments of joie de vivre.

Here is a performance of the Solo de Concert No. 6 by flautist Francesco Loi. He is accompanied by the Seoul Virtuosi Orchestra, conducted by Patrick Gallois.

The third, and final, piece in the first half of the concert was the Fantaisie brillante sur ‘Carmen’ by François Borne (1840–1920), a French flautist with the principal opera company in Bordeaux who was also a composer and a professor at the Conservatoire de Musique de Toulouse. He is noted, apart from his other abilities, for having brought about technical improvements to the flute as an instrument. An (unfortunately unsigned) article on the ‘Utah Symphony’ website has the following to say about the 1880 Fantaisie brillante, a work that is now a staple of the Romantic flute repertoire:

Borne’s setting of Carmen’s luscious melodies – like those by Sarasate for the violin, and by Busoni and Horowitz for the piano – combine the virtuoso’s understanding of the solo instrument with a flair for the dance rhythms and passionate colors of the opera. Borne fills his setting with spectacular arpeggios that require fleet fingering and consummate breath control. Carmen’s brilliant Habanera, a traditional dance that she performs with castanets (and with abundant flirting), anchors the work. But the mood of Borne’s Carmen is far brighter than that of the fatalistic Gypsy girl of Bizet’s opera. In Borne’s showpiece, a set of brilliant variations on her showy Habanera leads to a triumphant close – in marked contrast with the opera’s violent, tragic ending.

In this work, the ADK Istanbul Youth Orchestra were, if I may be pardoned for using the expression, ‘on a roll’. They managed the off-beat entries at the beginning without a single flaw in their co-ordination, and they successfully negotiated a tricky rallentando (ie, a gradual slowing down – full marks once again to Sulu, their conductor). Later on, the horns performed well in the high register when required to provide punctuation to a flute solo. I have to admit that there were times when the flautist got a little ahead of the orchestra, but that did not detract from my appreciation of her spectacular technique. All in all, this was a very creditable performance of an appealing piece.

In this rendition of Borne’s Fantaisie brillante sur ‘Carmen’, the soloist is the distinguished French-Swiss flautist Emmanuel Pahud. The orchestra is the Orchestre national de Lyon, conducted by their Armenian maestro Alain Altınoğlu.

Given that the concert took place the day after November 10, the anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, it was no surprise that the second half should consist of a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the ‘Eroica’, with its funeral-march second movement. This is one of my favourite Beethoven symphonies by reason of its powerful, driving rhythm, its use of syncopation (a major departure from the accepted norms of the time), its clashing mino-second discords (another surprisingly modern feature), and most of all its surging energy – which bursts out in a hell-for-leather last movement. 

This particular performance was enhanced by some sensitively-shaped phrasing (for which, once again, I must praise the conductor), some gorgeously fulsome sound from the cellos and double basses, the violins’ faultless intonation when playing in their high register, some excellent solos and ensemble playing by a well-balanced woodwind department – and the appearance on stage of a ginger cat during the first movement. The cat eventually disappeared, but the excellent phrasing continued throughout. My only criticisms are, firstly, that the strings’ co-ordination was slightly off-colour at the end of the second movement, and secondly, that the poor horns fluffed their fanfare in the third. (Being a former horn-player, I felt for them: everything else they did during the concert went swimmingly, but when called upon to perform their party piece, they succumbed to nerves.)

I do not wish, however, for any ungenerous carpings to cast a shadow over my account of this concert, which I found both enjoyable and (most of all) highly encouraging for the future course of Turkey’s progress towards the goal of attaining the level of European orchestras in terms of professionalism. And didn’t Atatürk himself say something about the desirability of equalling the Westerners at their own cultural game? I certainly have no intention of making any political points, this being a purely musical blog, but I do like to hear classical music well performed, and see no reason why Turkish people shouldn’t experience this pleasure.

But enough of theorising. When I left this concert, I was still on a Beethoven high, and attracted attention to myself by singing (rather loudly, I have to say) the melody of that horn fanfare on the pavements of Kadıköy on a balmy November evening.