Can classical music be reignited in Britain as a popular force? If the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain has anything to do with it – yes! These 160 talented 13 to 19-year olds play with gusto and aplomb. For all the talk of encouraging and boosting ‘access to the arts’, the surest way to spark interest in classical music among a new generation surely comes simply from the witnessing the enthusiasm of classically-trained teenage musicians. At Prom 31 at the Royal Albert Hall this month, their dedication and intense performance infected the audience, who applauded with one ovation after another, and shed the odd tear.

The concert began with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor. Half the orchestra appeared on stage dressed in black, followed by the Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko. The audience was silent. Then, Dom Di Di Dom. The opening bars of the concerto opened up with the pianist’s precision playing echoed by the violins. After several minutes the atmosphere of the hushed crowd gave way to the sounds made by a sea of moving violin wands. A bugle sounded in the distance. The piano notes started to echo the rest of the orchestra. Then flip. The mass of violinists and flautists let the piano take the lead again with a shrill stacatto before returning to a regular, measured beat and tone and finally, ended with a trickle of piano notes.

Pause. The second part of the concerto involved oboes together with the violins. A violin struck a singular, angry note. The pianist’s pace changed as if he’d got it wrong.  Before you could figure out if he had, the whole orchestra joined in the new rhythm, asking the audience’s ears to consider a new musical journey in 4/4 time. As the musicians played, their performance allowed the mind to drift away to a time of elegance past as the sounds of piano and violins dripped in to each other with the strings going beautifully down the scale.

Pause again. The final part of the concerto ended with just the piano. The delicacy in the way the end notes were played gave the impression that the piano keys were made of glass. The audience gushed praise. Although a delicate piece, I had expected the sound of Tchaikovsky to fill the auditorium. It seemed somebody had forgotten to turn up the volume or was I going deaf? However my aural hunger was satisfied after the interval.

For Lutosklawski’s Concerto for Orchestra, the whole of the National Youth Orchestra appeared on stage – harps, bassoons, more cellos, percussion, tubas, French horns and more. Petrenko appeared again, the 33-year old star of the classical world. His arms lifted, baton in hand. Drum beats. Immediately the violins were menacing. It was as if the Royal Albert Hall had the beginning of a hurricane whirling inside it. A lull. The wind instruments took over, soon to be overtaken by the strings in a violent crescendo complete with string plucking. As if birds were circling overhead, the volume lessened to allow the sounds of pipes to play their role.

Then cymbals crashed, a gong was struck. The music conjured up images of sea waves crashing on the rocks. The lead violinist took his turn, the BBC’s crane-suspended cameras zoomed in as if their movements could add to his sounds in some way. Then quiet. After a short time, the violins played low volume, scratching noises. Imaginary mice were scurrying all over the place, picking up food, building their nests and bumping in to each other. The pipes went up a minor scale and then musically ran off. Silence. But not quite. The harpists plucked at base notes. The imaginary world of nature looked peaceful but lurking beneath was life. Huge applause.

The final performance was Respighi’s Roman Festivals. Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) was an Italian opera, ballet and orchestral composer, violinist and conductor who wrote Roman Festivals in 1925, part of the Roman Trilogy, his poetic homage to Roman life.  Trumpets sounded from on high. The violinists led the way, engulfing the mind as if to say we should all consider how we make sense of the world. Arabic phrases evoked dancers and the percussionists had their moments with loud drum beats and bells ringing out. Suddenly, lost in the reverie of a musical festival, we were treated to a crescendo of sounds as if horses were stampeding through, majestic horsemen riding through the throng. I closed my eyes to get the full effect.

Then an Olympic-style parade of imaginery dancers and showmen took over as the whole orchestra played, real young musicians’ bodies, heads and wands swaying in unison, finally filling the Royal Albert Hall with a sound overload that ended in a magnificent triumph, the animated orchestra playing their final note, leaving the audience wanting much more. Encore!