Aug 30, 2024

Danny Elfman: Percussion Concerto (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

WunderkammerPercussion Concerto – Triangle/D.S.C.H./Down/Syncopate*; Are You Lost?**. *Colin Currie, percussion; **Kantos Chamber Choir; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta, conductor. Sony Classical 19659889842

 

The composer Danny Elfman (b. 1953) is probably most widely known for his work as a film composer: some of his many notable credits include the soundtracks for The Nightmare Before ChristmasBeetlejuiceEdward ScissorhandsGood Will HuntingBatmanSpidermanMission Impossible, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In addition to all that, millions of fans owe him a debt of gratitude for composing the theme music that opens The Simpsons. He is also a singer, and in fact led the new wave band Oingo Boingo (1979-1995). As the twenty-first century made its appearance, Elfman began to compose serious classical music including a piano quartet, a percussion quartet, a violin concerto, and a cello concerto – and of course, the compositions on this lively new release from Sony Classics.

 

Elfman (left) relates in the liner notes that he was in London working on a film score just before the COVID-19 pandemic when his manager suggested that he meet with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYOGB), who had expressed an interest in a commission. At first Elfman was skeptical about the idea of a youth orchestra, but after attending a NYOGB concert performance, he recounts, “I was, “to say the least, blown away by how good they were. I decided on the spot that I would indeed find a way to write a piece for them. So I jumped into the composition that’s now called Wunderkammer. My original intention was to create something that was very challenging for them, as I knew they were up for that, and something that would also be fun and exciting for them to dig into, which might feature different instrument sections to give everyone a moment to shine.” Shining here are sections of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as under the baton of JoAnn Falletta (pictured below) they take us on a tour of Elfman’s three “wonder rooms,” which are by turns relatively fast, slow, and fast. The outer movements have a bouncy, loping feel to them, while the middle movement has an element of spookiness lurking about. All three give the players plenty to do – there are even some vocal passages. 

Elfman’s Percussion Concerto has its roots in his travels in West Africa as a teenager, where he began collecting and learning to play balafons (similar to a marimba). Later, in his twenties, he played in Indonesian gamelan ensembles and then built his own wood and metal percussion ensembles for theater performances. He writes that “shortly after the 2017 premiere of my first violin to concerto, I had a chance meeting with percussionist Colin Currie in London. We decided it could be great fun to create a piece together. I was excited to plunge into the challenge of another concerto, while at the same time to really go back to my roots with wood and metal, mallets and sticks and hands. I also knew Colin was an extraordinary musician who would be great to collaborate with.  And I was aware that there that there were far fewer concertos for percussion than for the more obvious instruments like piano, violin, cello, etc., and that meant there were far fewer models to guide me, which made the idea of a percussion concerto far more enticing.” 

Currie (left) gets a chance to strut his stuff right from the get-go, playing a variety of percussion instruments to open the first of the four movements, 
Triangle. This is followed by D.S.C.H., a movement that manages to capture the feeling of a Shostakovich symphonic movement – that feeling that the Soviet composer is writing celebratory music while nervously fearing for his life. Elfman has penned a worthy tribute here! The third movement, Down, is more down in tempo, more brooding in mood, strings and more reflective percussion from Currie. The energy level picks back up in the finale, Syncopate, in which the temp increases and Currie cuts loose once again, supported energetically by the orchestra, including notably tympani and big bass drum. It’s a fun movement for turning up your stereo and letting your neighbors know you’re home – and syncopated!

After all the fun and energy of the two preceding percussion-oriented pieces, Are You Lost? seems a bit out of place. Elfman mentions that the folks at Sony Classical had suggested that for this recording of Wunderkammer and the Percussion Concerto, he should also include a piece that had never been recorded before. As a result, he decided to recast a movement from a trio he had written for violin, voice, and piano into a composition for choir and full orchestra. Interestingly, the opening notes of are you lost of Are You Lost? echo the opening notes of Syncopate, so perhaps it is not completely out of place after all. Still, it seems tacked on, something of an afterthought. It’s an okay piece; however, it really would have made more sense to place it between rather than after its discmates. 

 Although more extensive liner notes would be welcome, the sonics are impressive and overall, the release is a refreshingly original and bracingly refreshing blast of fresh air. I will admit that when I first auditioned it, I was unimpressed; it took a few sessions for the music to come. To life for me. Once it did, however, I found it to be music that well-crafted and completely satisfying. It’s music that will make you smile. Highly recommended.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment. It will be published after review.

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa