What joy to hear a full orchestra playing again in the magnificently refurbished Roundhouse.

The massive Victorian locomotive-shed in North London may be more famously associated with hippy happenings than symphonies. But in its Sixties heyday it was also the grungy venue of choice for classical music’s avant-garde. It would be great if significant musical premieres could again be mounted under its grand old dome.

But some problems need to be addressed first, as this concert by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain revealed. One is the acoustics. It’s unfortunate, and surprising, that so cavernous a building should seem to have so little reverberation.

That dryness couldn’t have calmed the nerves of the NYO violinists as they negotiated the cruelly exposed opening of the Four Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, nor the morale of the horns as they attempted to climb to the fiendish heights demanded by Prokofiev in the finale of Romeo and Juliet. Surely the huge curtain behind the orchestra should have been removed in the interests of resonance, no matter what visual inelegances it concealed.

Then there was the sepulchral twilight. It seemed odd that, in a venue with an apparently comprehensive array of floods and spots, the outer ranks of this (admittedly vast) orchestra were wreathed in gloomy shadows. More alarmingly, so were their music stands. James MacMillan’s Vigil symphony is challenging enough for young players, without forcing them to strain to see the dots.

In the circumstances, they acquitted themselves well. But another worry – unrelated to the venue – was whether the chosen repertoire wasn’t a challenge too far. MacMillan was at his best conducting his own piece – a heartfelt if lugubrious meditation on the Easter Vigil that gradually moved from primordial darkness and savage growls to luminous exultation. And he was rewarded by assured playing, particularly from the brass players scattered round the auditorium, to evoke “the trumpets of salvation”.

But perhaps he had spent too much time preparing his own piece, because both the Britten and Prokofiev sounded undercharacterised and (unusually for this ebullient orchestra) lacking in verve. Plenty for the NYO’s new management to ponder.

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