James MacMillan’s new percussion concerto was performed by Colin Currie and The Philharmonia last Thursday evening as part of the Metal Wood Skin event. Prior to the concert, the Love Music Trust’s Percussion Ensemble gave a great performance with guest vibraphonist Anthony Kerr. 
A video of their performance will follow shortly on this site. UCan Play is delighted to sponsor this ensemble of talened young musicians.
In other good percussion news, we are delighted to announce that Josh Savage, one of the lead percussionists in the ensemble, has been accepted onto the new RNCM undergraduate ‘jazz’ degree pathway starting in September 2015. Our congratulations go to Josh at this exciting time for him.
MacMillan’s percussion concerto is a tour de force. It utilises an extensive battery of percussion instruments including marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone, chromatic cow bells, a steel pan and numerous assorted other items (and that’s before we consider the instruments being played by the three orchestral percussions – including, in this performance, a very loud siren). Any orchestra or soloist wanting to take on this piece must make sure they have a very large cheque to hand over to Bell Percussion (other hire companies are available too no doubt).
Whilst I enjoyed the concerto, I was left with a residing thought that percussion concerti generally are a problematic form. I think this comes down to my pretty conservative and classical view that a concerto is, essentially, a musical form that relies on a conversation between soloist and orchestra. Percussionists are essential multi-instrumentalists. The huge variety of sound on offer throughout this concerto blurs the essential form and I was often left wondering who was doing what. Visually, of course, it is highly entertaining to watch Currie dancing around the stage from instrument to instrument.
MacMillan, of course, is a highly skilful composer. He utilises the plethora of sounds available in highly imaginative ways. There are too many to mention in detail, but one that stuck in my mind was the combination of high pitched, tremolo-like harp, together with a scratchy solo viola and Currie playing a steel pan. I can honestly say that I have never heard the resulting sound before. I remain to be convinced that the timbre of a solo steel pan works effectively in this context. Instrumentally, there were numerous examples of MacMillan exploring the chosen instruments in other ways. There were many highlights. However, I question the musical and expressive potential of chromatic cow bells even in the hands of the world’s leading solo percussionist.
Returning to the general point of this short reflection, I suppose that key issue is whether ‘percussion’ is an instrument? A marimba concerto is a very different proposition to a ‘percussion’ concerto. Whilst discussing these thoughts with a friend yesterday, I learnt about a saxophone quartet concerto that his ensemble had performed. Clearly, multi-instrument concerto forms have a long history (going back to Bach and his concerto grossi at least, and probably before), so the challenge for the composer is provide a suitable degree of differentiation between the soloist and the ensemble. If I was listening to his piece on the radio, and I didn’t know it was a percussion concerto, would I have been able to guess that it was one? Does it matter?
As a percussionist who learnt to play the various instruments in the 1980s and 90s, I am constantly amazed at how the percussion repertoire has developed and grown over the last 25 years. I was bought up on a diet of Hamilton Green’s ragtime pieces for xylophone and the odd transcribed Bach prelude or fugue. The sheer range of repertoire available for young percussionists is outstanding today, as evidenced by the performance of Elliott Gaston-Ross as part of the pre-concert performances.
Contemporary classical music must challenge conventions, forms and sounds. It needs to move us in new ways. MacMillan’s new piece did all of this. I really enjoyed it. But, I’d be interested to hear others’ views on whether the notion of a ‘percussion concerto’ is a flawed one or not. 
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