Percussion Concertos

[greg]

What are your favorites?

I wanted to put up the file of my favorite percussion concerto (and one of my all-time favorite works) but I can't even rip it from the CD..... it takes 5 mintues just go to up 1% and it says time remaining: 55 min. This has never happened before

[Mark G. Simon]

There's a really nice marimba concerto by Paul Creston.

And Karel Husa's Concerto for Percussion and Wind Ensemble is, like so many of his works, a real powerhouse.

[bhodges]

Some off the top of my head:

MacMillan: Veni, Veni Emmanuel - Written for Evelyn Glennie, who does a magnificent job with it.  I've also heard it live with Colin Currie, another virtuoso percussionist well worth hearing.

Schwantner: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra - Also premiered by Glennie (IIRC) and although I've only heard it once, it made a strong impression.

Last year I heard Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto with Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra (also with Mr. Currie), and thought it was well worth a re-listen sometime.

--Bruce

[wintersway]

Rituals - awesome!

[Larry Rinkel]

What are your favorites?

I wanted to put up the file of my favorite percussion concerto (and one of my all-time favorite works) but I can't even rip it from the CD..... it takes 5 mintues just go to up 1% and it says time remaining: 55 min. This has never happened before

And which one is that? Mention should be made of Wuorinen's Percussion Symphony, which is as much a concerto as anything else.

[JoshLilly]

Back in the second half of the 18th century, there were some works written with bizarre instruments or unusual combinations (like Albrechtsberger's two concerti for Jews' Harp and Mandora). The oboist Georg Druschetzky (born Jiří Družecký, 1745-1819) had a fancy for timpani, and apparently was quite good with them, and played them professionally on occasion. He got his start in the military, shuffled around from post to post playing in the regimental band. He finally stepped out of this service and into a music career in Hungary. It would appear many - perhaps most - of his works have now been lost, but we do know that he wrote round about 150 works for wind ensembles, and perhaps near 30 symphonies, and even a couple of operas thrown in for good measure. Available in recording are: Concerto for Oboe, 8 Timpani, and Orchestra, and the Concerto for 6 Timpani and Orchestra. I have this CD and actually liked it way more than I thought, since I couldn't imagine solo timpani being all that fun to listen to.

He also wrote something that has, to my knowledge, never been recorded, a Partita on Farmers' Instruments (drehleier, Dudelsack, hackbrett, zither, alphorn, and xylophone). No timpani, so off-topic, but pretty weird all the same. But there are some other works of his that may still exist which heavily feature timpani that have not been recorded (as far as I know), including solo pieces for 7 timpani, and a Janisary Symphony, a work for two orchestras with quadruple timpani (and cymbals, triangle, and other percussion)!


There was also a contemporary of his, the pianist Ferdinand Kauer (1751-1831). I think he holds the record for the most vocal works by a single composer (about 200 operatic works, and about 200 masses and related). He was very popular during the early 1800s for his opera Das Donauweibchen, which was performed all over the place for a couple of decades. I mention him here because of his many works for xylophone, which I guess is a percussion instrument. He wrote sonatas for it, and some of his Violin Sonatas actually don't use the piano: instead, he went with the xylophone!!! he also wrote at least one concerto for Xylophone and Orchestra, seen as very bizarre at the time, but I don't know if the music still even exists.

[pjme]

Hi Josh, Druschetsky's Parthia "auf Bauerninstrumenten" was recorded on Hungaroton hcd 12874. Capella Savaria under Pal Nemeth.It has all the hurdy gurdy's ,alphorns, citterns,dulcimers and "trombe marine"( the tromba marina is some kind of violin,if I remember well...) you can wish for. Not great music, but lots of fun and burgundian exuberance.

As for percussionconcertos, Darius Milhaud's (all too short - ca 8 mins.!) is propably the first one in the 20th century (1930). It is a nice little, raw piece however .Milhaud has used the percussion often to even more dramatic effect : in Les choéphores (with recitation & chorus), a substanbtial concerto for two pianos and 4 percussion ( ca 1962), in several symphonies ( nr 4, , aconcerto for marimba,vibraphone & orch;
André Jolivet wrote a quite substantial concerto in 1958 - for one player & orch., who uses a different set of instruments in every movement. Jolivet wrote well for percussion : a beautiful Suite en concert for flute & 4 percussion, Heptade for trumpet & 1 percussionist, a mighty Cérémonial (in memory of Varèse) for Les percussions de Strasbourg. In many of his orchestral works the percussionsection has a distinctive role : symphony 2, celloconcerto nr 1,pianoconcerto,trumpetconcerto nr 2 etc

During the 1950-1960 period, other French composers were drawn to percussion : Raymond Loucheur wrote a concertino, Yvonne Desportes wrote two concerti for her son (1957 and 1960) , Elsa Barraine, Jacques Charpentier, Antoine Tisné, Charles Chaynes.wrote extensively for percussion....all composers who had a rough time living in the shadow of Messiaen and Boulez
Mme Desportes' second concerto 'Le tambourinaire' (The drummer) i heard many years ago on France Musique - a spectacular and substantial work .
It would be nice to hear Arthur Meulemans' concerto for timpani & orch. (1954) written for Theo Coutelier, timpanisolo of the Belgian Nat.orch.

Peter

[Joe Barron]

Off the top of my head, I'd have to say the only percussion concerto I'm really familiar with is the one Robert Suderburg wrote for Michael Bookspan and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I've heard it twice in concert, and it's quite memorable. Unfortunately, it's never been recorded, and Bookpsan is gone now.

I also remember a performance by Stomu Yomashta of a percussion concerto by Huell Tircuit, also with the Philadelphia, though I've never heard of the concerto of the composer since.

[greg]

Schwantner: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra - Also premiered by Glennie (IIRC) and although I've only heard it once, it made a strong impression.

this is my runner-up for favorite Per Conc. I love it, especially the 2nd movement!
i've probably only heard about 4, though 

has anyone heard Xenakis' O-Mega on CD? I think it was recorded on CD since a long time ago I found a # in a list (ISBN # or something) but it's probably just about impossible to find. Not only that, but I doubt the recording has made it out of France.   

[greg]

oh wait, i just did another search and actually found the CD this time! it was the first listen in the google search 

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,1057781,00.html

[greg]

oh, duh, i must've forgotten about this:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~digimus/xenakis/pages/fig243.html

the drums sound striking over the sound of the orchestra.... 

[greg]

here's the next big percussion soloist for avant-garde music:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=351

(i'd rather not saying the next Evelyn Glennie.... cuz, you know, that'd be weird)

[jurajjak]

The Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra by contemporary composer Sergei Zhukov is worth seeking out (I think it was recently released a mainstream label).  It's a monster of a piece, but for all its noise and fury it's actually pretty approachable and accessible.

I recently got the Schwanter concerto a couple weeks ago--seems like a very solid piece.



Andrew

[Pierre]

There's a new recording of Erkki-Sven Tuur's Magma, which is in effect a percussion concerto, performed by Evelyn Glennie and conducted by Paavo Jarvi on Virgin Classics.

[bhodges]

There's a new recording of Erkki-Sven Tuur's Magma, which is in effect a percussion concerto, performed by Evelyn Glennie and conducted by Paavo Jarvi on Virgin Classics.

At this point, I'd buy just about anything Glennie does...she's just marvelous.  Thanks for this heads-up. 

--Bruce

[BachQ]

What are your favorites?

Insofar as the piano is a percussion instrument, Brahms PC 1 and Strauss Burleske in d minor.........

[paul]

A few years ago I played in an orchestra accompanying Evelyn Glennie in Askell Masson's Concerto for Snare Drum and Orchestra. It was a surprisingly good, if brief, piece and I would be interested in hearing it again. I'm not sure if Evelyn Glennie has recorded it. She also plays Christopher Rouse's percussion concerto Der Gerettete Alberich wonderfully which can be found on an Ondine CD with Rouse's Violin Concerto and Rapture for Orchestra.

[m_gigena]

Insofar as the piano is a percussion instrument, Brahms PC 1 and Strauss Burleske in d minor.........

and Bartok's second.

[m_gigena]

There's a really nice marimba concerto by Paul Creston.

And there's a nicer one by Alfred Reed.

[Maciek]

You haven't heard the best percussion concerto out there until you've heard Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's Triptykon (1985). 0:)

Another one that comes to mind (quite good but not half as good as Holmgreen's) is Marta Ptaszyńska's Marimba Concerto. Samples here.