For many long years, concertos for percussion
were a rarity; and, if asked, many would
have answered: Milhaud. Now, thanks
to young brilliant percussion players,
such as Evelyn Glennie and Colin Currie,
the repertoire has dramatically expanded,
often with quite interesting pieces,
although none have convinced me completely.
A recent concerto for percussion and
orchestra is Margaret Brouwer’s Aurolucent
Circles composed for Evelyn
Glennie and first performed by her with
the Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard
Schwarz. It is a full-fledged concerto
in three movements designed to explore
the many possibilities of solo percussion
with orchestra and to exploit the dedicatee’s
virtuosity to the full. The first movement
provides a mysterious introduction,
and the whole work ends with a brilliant
Toccata. The mysterious mood of the
opening soon gives way to more contrasted
episodes while the movement ends with
a vehement percussion tattoo. The second
movement, too, opens in an other-worldly
atmosphere with spare orchestral sounds
and rustling percussion suggesting vast
empty spaces. The orchestra progressively
joins in, but the soloist is quite often
accompanied by one of the two concertinos,
either a small group of two flutes,
two harps, two percussion sections,
solo strings and one trombone, or five
woodwinds. The final movement is a perpetual
motion bringing the work to its brilliant,
virtuosic conclusion. There are not
that many percussion concertos, although
the repertoire is regularly enriched
by new works commissioned by or simply
written for some young percussion soloists.
Brouwer’s Aurolucent Circles
is a most welcome addition. Now, why
‘Aurolucent Circles’, you may ask. Allow
me then to quote from the composer’s
insert notes: "... the sparkling
and lucent sounds of so many of the
percussion instruments used ... the
circling of the sound around the stage,
brought to mind the aurora borealis
... So, ‘aurolucent’ combines the words
aurora and lucent."
Mandala
is in two parts, the first of which
opens with a solo trombone intoning
an old Dutch psalm tune (Psalm 91) drawn
from Het Boek nevens de Gezangen
bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland,
on which the composer also drew in another
work, Light (2001) for
soprano and small ensemble (on New World
80606-2). One might think that a sand
mandala made by Buddhist priests and
an old Dutch psalm tune make strange
bedfellows; but the whole thing works
remarkably well thanks to Brouwer’s
superb scoring, and ends up as a very
rewarding piece.
Pulse: A 50th
Anniversary Fanfare is a short,
brilliant concert-opener composed to
mark the 50th anniversary
of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra for
which Brouwer also composed – Pluto
– A Sequel (yes, to Holst’s
Planets). It is a colourful
work that perfectly lives up to its
title. So does SIZZLE,
yet another short, fast-moving orchestral
fanfare, again superbly scored. Both
pieces are not unlike, say, John Adams’
Short Ride in a Fast Machine,
although the music is clearly Brouwer’s
own.
Remembrances
is a beautiful and moving elegy composed
in memory of Robert Stewart. In many
respects, it may be the most traditional
work; but, as far as I am concerned,
it is one of the finest here and the
most deeply felt and moving. Various
episodes, happy and sorrowful, meditative
and angry are capped by an appeased
coda of great beauty. This is certainly
an intimate, personal work that deserves
to be heard more often.
This Naxos disc also
prompted me to review another disc of
works by Margaret Brouwer that I had
been unable to review so far. The New
World disc offers some fairly recent
chamber works; and, as such, is the
perfect complement to the Naxos release.
Each provides a fair survey of her recent
output and of her personal sound-world.
Brouwer began composing
Lament, scored for violin,
clarinet, bassoon and percussion, some
three weeks after September 11, 2001
in an attempt "to express in some
way the numbness, anguish, bewilderment"
caused by that terrifying event. The
opening Prelude sets a mood of utter
desolation, whereas the second movement
Unfinished Song, beginning almost
innocently, becomes rather more ominous
before petering out. The central movement
Lament is the weightiest and
the most questing, its sorrowful chant
being regularly assaulted by the percussion’s
sharp, angry commentaries. The piece
ends in an appeased, though still uneasy
mood.
Light
is a short work in three movements scored
for soprano, harpsichord, flute, clarinet,
violin, cello and percussion, setting
a fragment by Hildegard von Bingen in
the first movement and words by the
physicist Richard Feynman in the third
movement, the central one being a short
instrumental fantasy on two old Dutch
tunes, i.e. a song by Ockeghem and a
psalm tune from Het Boek nevens de
Gezangen bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland,
from which she also quoted in the orchestral
work Mandala. These sources
are embedded in Brouwer’s sound-world
to great effect. Musically, the third
movement Atoms is a musical journey
that begins in archaic mood and ends
in present times.
Under the Summer
Tree ... for piano began life
as a one-movement piano sonata to which
Brouwer soon added two more. Only after
completing the work did she added titles,
actually lines drawn from Thomas Hardy’s
poem During Wind and Rain. The
first movement is the most substantial
and calls for considerable energy as
well as musicality. The beautiful second
movement has a dream-like quality and
a feeling of improvisation that adds
to its mysterious mood. The final movement
provides a brilliant conclusion to what
is a full-fledged piano sonata in all
but name.
Skyriding,
the earliest work in this selection
of chamber works, is scored for flute/alto
flute, violin, cello and piano. The
flowing motion unfolding almost effortlessly
in the course of the first movement
is briefly interrupted by some abrupt
interjections suggesting agitation beneath
the seemingly calm surface. The second
movement is a straightforward, beautiful
song without words in total contrast
with the concluding dance-like fantasy
that rounds the work off.
Demeter Prelude,
composed at about the same time as the
orchestral piece Pluto – A Sequel
(i.e. to Holst’s Planets), evokes
Demeter’s chase for Persephone abducted
by Hades. The music slows down in the
central section and gives way to short
recitatives before resuming its headlong
journey abruptly cut short.
Both discs provide
a fair survey of Brouwer’s recent music,
which is clearly of its time and which
uses modern techniques such as key clicks,
knocks on the piano’s lid, words whispered
by the orchestral players (as in the
second part of Mandala),
but always for expressive purposes or
for instrumental colour, so that they
never sound as mere fashionable gimmicks.
The sound-world of Margaret Brouwer,
incidentally no relation whatsoever
to the Cuban guitarist, conductor and
composer Leo Brouwer, is entirely her
own, colourful, inventive and – most
importantly – strongly expressive. All
performances and recordings serve the
music well.
Each disc provides
an excellent introduction to Margaret
Brouwer’s personal sound-world and music-making.
It is now up to you to decide whether
you prefer to make acquaintance through
the orchestral music or the chamber
music. Whichever way you choose, you
will most likely want to hear more of
it.
Hubert Culot
Evelyn Glennie (percussion)a 
