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On 21 April 1948, Weber's Oberon Overture opened a concert at the Bath Assembly Rooms, given by an orchestra that consisted entirely of children. This was the inaugural concert of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

Today, children鈥檚 orchestras are part of our musical culture. Yet in 1946, when pianist Ruth Railton decided that orchestra for young people was exactly what post-war Britain needed, she met with considerable opposition. Music education in the preceding decades had been an ad hoc mixture of idealism and pragmatism: lists of lofty aims jostled with aspirational rhetoric. But there were trailblazers: the Mary Datchelor School in Camberwell supported girls with strong musical ability, and in Bradford, Elizabeth Lumb鈥檚 secondary school brass band reached the National Championships.

And then there was Ruth Railton. Complex, controversial and a strict disciplinarian fuelled by a unshakeable belief that music-making could be liberating. "We should not be trying to fill the heads of the young with facts and theories," she wrote in 1966, "but let them experience music with their hearts". She garnered powerful support for her orchestra: Sir Adrian Boult become president, with Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir John Barbirolli as vice-presidents. In 1947, Railton set off across the UK to audition over 2,000 school children. She found the kind of talent that George Dyson, director of the Royal College of Music had told her "doesn't often exist". And then she brought her young orchestra together for courses and concerts, despite having being warned it would be a logistical impossibility. This was a woman who could persuade rail companies to stop at unscheduled stations to allow her orchestra to reach their touring destinations.

Since 1948, the orchestra has nurtured over 5,000 young musicians. Railton established not just an orchestra, but a tradition that you can hear as clearly today as you could in 1948.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 91热爆 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 91热爆 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This archive recording features the 91热爆 National Orchestra of Wales with conductor Jac van Steen.

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