Jennifer Higdon Duo Duel*; Concerto for Orchestra *Matthew Strauss, *Svet Stoyanov (percussion); Houston Symphony/Robert Spano Naxos 8.559913 59:59 mins
Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra forms the bulk of the music on this virtuosic recording, featuring full symphony orchestra with a huge percussion section, harp and celeste. Using challenging techniques, she makes specific demands on the percussionists, producing lovely colours such as bowed vibraphone.
The whirlwind opening in the first movement instantly sets the high-energy mood, though is anticipatory rather than menacing. After the string-based jig of the second movement, the piece really settles in the third, and here the orchestration is spectacular; harmonics on the upper strings, coupled with glockenspiel and tubular bells, lovely ‘falling away’ sounds in the violins and, later, a vibrant use of different timpani timbres, with sonoric hints of Britten’s Sea Interludes.
The segueing of movement four into the fifth is placed in the hands of the Houston percussionists, and the initial transcendental Eastern soundworld develops into an urgent, rhythmical groove, eventually emerging into a breathless, fugue-like final movement. This thrilling, massive landscape ends with wonderful bell-like sounds in the brass section and a Bernstein-style swagger.
Higdon’s obvious delight in anything hit, scraped or shaken is exemplified in the other work on this recording; the fiendishly difficult and fiery Duo Duel for two percussionists and orchestra. Here she draws on clock mechanism sonorities, shimmery marimba chords, and – towards the end of the piece – sniffs of Japanese culture with the timpani sounding like taiko drums. A spectacular recording and performance.
Anne Templer