If you’ve ever seen a solo percussionist or percussion ensemble perform live, then you know how important the visual experience is to such a performance’s overall interest and impact. The physicality, combined with the flow and rhythm of the performer’s precisely choreographed movement as he works at one or among several instruments can be quite exciting and impressive. Seeing how the often complex timbres and effects are created adds to the enjoyment–without the visual cues, a listener can be left disoriented and detached. All of which is to say that this fine recording tells only part of the music’s story–and some of this music would be well worth getting to know in a concert hall with favorable acoustics.
As it is, we hear some formidable, virtuosic performances from percussionists Daryl Pratt (who specializes in vibraphone) and Alison Eddington (marimba). Sometimes they play on one instrument together (four hands), at others they play separate instruments, and even add things such as gongs, noah bells, crotales, cow bells, drums, and cymbals to the mix. In one piece, Michael Smetanin’s “playfully”-titled Finger Funk, Pratt and Eddington perform on one marimba using “only their fingers and thumbs”–no mean trick, especially as the work lasts for more then eight minutes! Of course there are lots of unusual sounds, sometimes created by employing unusual objects to strike metal or wood, but most of all we notice the two players’ remarkable facility and admire their speed and delicacy of touch, and their complete command of their instruments. Some of the effects–the overlapping “waves” in Pratt’s Waves Part 1; the eerily hypnotic melody in Peter Sculthorpe’s Djilile (“whistling duck on a billabong”); the complex interactive drumming dialog in Andrew Ford’s The Crantock Gulls–are especially memorable, while other pieces show more style than substance and thus quickly become boring. There’s some good stuff here–and these two players are world-class advocates for new percussion music. I’d love to see them sometime. [1/6/2006]
