SOUNDS OF AMERICA
A tour de force of percussion-writing: Impulse Control by Evan Ziporyn, as performed by Lee Hinkle for his new album of modern American percussion concertos were composed between 1954 and 1986, and explore a range of lyrical and pensive moods in a tonally based style. Potvin masters each technical challenge while distilling the specific character of each prelude. I particularly enjoyed the wit and insouciance he finds in No 11, with its echoes of Debussy’s ‘Golliwogg’s Cakewalk’.
Growing Forgiveness (2022) by Cris Derksen draws upon her classical background and Indigenous ancestry. It begins with slow and steady arpeggiated chords, then accelerates into sharply rhythmical gestures. These yield in turn to a consolatory slow movement, before accelerated triplets usher in quicker music that gains dramatic and insistent rhythmic intensity. The piece ends with gentle and consoling afterthoughts.
The title of Murmuration by Keiko Devaux (b1982), scored for solo piano and tape, refers to a large flock of starlings. Avian evocations open the piece with highpitched repeated notes and trills, which the electronic component embellishes and fortifies. Elaborate piano figurations simulate the movement of small birds soaring in large flocks.
After Murmuration, the disc concludes with a stark contrast: Potvin’s own recent piano transcription of a short orchestral piece by Coulthard, The Contented House (1974). Its meditative and reflective qualities are bathed in a tranquil F major.
Potvin also provides informative notes for his recording. No timings appear either in the booklet or on the CD cover. The recorded piano sound, captured at the Domaine Forget de Charlevoix in Quebec, is first-class. Stephen Cera
Stucky . Wright . Ziporyn ‘Modern American Percussion Concerti’ Stucky Concerto for Percussion and Wind Orchestraa Wright Concertpiece for Marimba and Orchestrab Ziporyn Impulse Controlc
Lee Hinkle perc cPenn State University Wind Ensemble / Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin; bPenn’s Woods Festival Orchestra / Gerardo Edestein; a University of Maryland Wind Orchestra / Michael Votta Jnr Ravello (RR8101 • 64’)
This rather attractive album highlights the virtuosity of American percussionist Lee
Hinkle, principal percussionist of the 21st Century Consort (based in and around Washington DC and Maryland) and a concerto soloist of 10 years’ standing who has been making recordings for a similar length of time. The present album is his second of concertos for Ravello (the first came out in 2017), and he has recorded other albums for Navona, Albany and other labels.
Steven Stucky (1949-2016) composed his five-movement Concerto with wind orchestral accompaniment in 2001 to mark the retirement of Donald Hunsberger after four decades with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. The soloist, Gordon Stout, wanted Stucky to ‘range widely across the range of percussion families’, and Stucky took him at his word. The opening Energico concentrates on wooden instruments and drums, the succeeding Moderato delicato on marimba and steel drum, adding glockenspiel and xylophone for the central Vivace. The celebratory mood vanishes in the fourth movement, Grave, dedicated to the victims of the Twin Towers attack. Over a pulsing bass drum, gongs and bells lament and resonate in grief before being blown away by the onslaught of metallic percussion in the finale.
Hinkle’s mastery of each instrument is never in doubt as he brings Stucky’s mercurial, wide-ranging invention together. In Maurice Wright’s Concertpiece (1993), that intense musicality is focused wholly on the marimba. Light and entertaining as it is, even Hinkle’s formidable playing cannot disguise that the Brillante finale is just too long. No caveats, though, for Evan Ziporyn’s Impulse Control (2019), a convincing diptych of unequal parts scored for drum set (aka drum kit) and orchestra, and a tour de force of percussion-writing. The three ensembles provide Hinkle with superb support, showing a depth gramophone.co.uk
GRAMOPHONE JUNE 2024 III
