This past weekend’s concerts were built around pieces that had a very good amount of percussion in them, including the centerpiece of the concert, Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto, with the Scottish percussion soloist Colin Currie.
Percussion instruments are always great for audiences to see and hear in a featured role – you don’t often get to hear them as anything more than a background color, or a reinforcement of a musical climax. To hear the percussion instrument in the role of solo instruments is to be exposed to a tremendous amount of color, dynamic range and rhythmic vitality.
So this past weekend, it was great to see our percussion section (augmented from its usual three plus timpani to six percussionists) take a central role in all of the pieces on the program. They did themselves proud, and made all of the pieces come to life. The sardonic touches in Rodion Shchedrin’s ballet version of Bizet’s Carmen, were all spot on, and they provided touches of humor, too.
Most of all, I appreciated Jennifer Higdon’s remarkable Percussion Concerto. The work emerges out of silence, at the lowest octaves of the huge five octave marimba, the notes as much sensed as heard at the outset. There is a genuine dialogue between the solo percussionist and his colleagues in the orchestra, with a call and response going back and forth, including the tremendous climax of the virtuoso cadenza. This piece makes the percussion battery a grand musical instrument, not just a collection of noise makers that do so simply for effect. Jennifer has really become a strong, confident, unique voice in contemporary music – it’s no wonder that she’s one of the most performed living composers today. It was great to have her here last week for the rehearsals and performances.
What’s coming up next weekend? A tremendous piano soloist, the dynamic and beautiful Yuja Wang plays Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, the orchestra takes up Brahms’ dark and intense Tragic Overture, and we get more percussion featured in Carl Nielsen’s quirky (and hard as hell) Sixth Symphony “Simplice”. Lots of notes, lots of drama, and lots of great music.