Higdon: Duo Duel; Concerto for Orchestra (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Matthew Strauss, Svet Stoyanov, percussion; Houston Symphony conducted by Robert Spano. Naxos American Classics 8.559913

The American composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for her Violin Concerto, the same year she was awarded a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto. She has since gone on to collect two more Grammy awards, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto. (Hmmm, I seem to detect a pattern here. It looks as though a concerto from Ms. Higdon might be a pretty safe bet…) As our own John Puccio noted of her music in his review of one of her earlier compositions, “ Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes.” This new release from Naxos features two energetic works for orchestra that offer further evidence for John’s praise of the composer’s artistry. Both are in fact concertos – one for percussion instruments and orchestra, the other, like the widely known one by Bartók, for orchestra “solo.” And yes, these concertos by composer Higdon prove to be very safe bets indeed.

 

Higdon begins her CD booklet essay introducing the first of the two works on this release, Duo Duel, with these startling words: “This concerto contains 41,973 notes…” before continuing more conventionally, “…and is dedicated to the two percussionists who inspired it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. Composition started mid-February 2020 and was completed by 11 June 2020.” (By the way, I did some quick math and estimated that assuming she took weekends off, she would have had to average around 451 notes per day. Phew!) But it is in her next paragraph concerning Duo Duel where Higdon has some really interesting things to say about her composition, things of which the listener to this recording would otherwise be completely unawares: “Both soloists stand at the front of the stage, one on each side. The solo instruments are pitched percussion instruments (as opposed to non-pitched, such as drums). The soloists play vibraphone (which they share), marimba (which they also share), crotales (small metal discs with a high pitch), and a total of six timpani (three for each player). They frequently stand very close together to play the same instrument. Two-thirds of the concerto features the keyboard percussion instruments, and the final one-third features the timpani.” 

This was a case where reading the liner notes not only gave me an insight into a particular composition, (after all, that’s what liner notes are supposed to do), but also made me realize that Higdon was conceiving of her work as something to be played by live musicians in a concert hall where their duel could be seen in all its vivid three-dimensional glory as the two percussionists moved around the stage striking their various instruments, at times even playing side-by-side. As per my usual practice I had listened to this release several times before reading the notes, and I must confess that although I thoroughly enjoyed the music, which is colorful and energetic, with the prominent percussion adding some extra excitement, I never quite understood the “duel” implied by the title. It just didn’t sound like a percussion duel – nothing like the dueling tympani in Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, for example, which is the sort of sound the title Duo Duel had led me to expect. But when I read Higdon’s notes, it suddenly hit mt that this was music played by live musicians in real space, and had I seen them in the concert hall rather than merely heard them through my speakers – as wonderful as my Legacy Audio Focus SEs might be – there are elements of a live performance that microphones cannot capture. Still, I do not mean to sound discouraging: Duo Duel is a lively, colorful, exciting new composition that is well worth an audition. You can get a sense of what a live performance would be like from this promotional video from Naxos, which you can watch here.

But wait – there’s more!

 

The American conductor Robert Spano (b. 1961) actually recorded Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra previously, with the Atlanta Symphony for the late, lamented Telarc label on a CD that was released in January, 2007. Curiously enough, on that release, the work also took second billing, to a tone poem titled City Scape. (I had hoped to do a quick A/B listening session with the two recordings to compare the sonics but could not lay my hands on the Telarc, which must be hiding in a box somewhere, alas.) The Telarc was a fine release for which I wrote a positive review for The $ensible Sound magazine back when it first came out. 

 

As in Duo Duel, percussion features prominently throughout, bringing a strong sense of continuity to the album as a whole. Like Bartók’s well-known work of the same name, Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra consists of five movements. In her notes, she reflects on the fact that “surprisingly, the first movement was the last to be composed. It took writing the other four movements to create a clear picture of what was needed to start the virtuosic tour-de-force.” Of the work as a whole, she explains, “the Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections and the whole orchestra.” The work truly is a virtuosic tour-de-force; moreover, Spano clearly believes in it – enough to record it twice, and his enthusiasm clearly inspires the Houston players. Especially for those who enjoy giving their audio systems a good workout, this new release is highly recommended.