Minimal Percussion

This BBC Music mag cover disk from 2002 is one of their rare forays into contemporary music with works by John Adams and Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales play Short Ride in a Fast Machine under Mark Elder and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth perform The Chairman Dances, both pieces I have considered elsewhere. The core of the disk is a very fine performance of Harmonium by the BBC National Orchesta and Chorus of Wales plus the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus under Grant Llewellyn. This sets works by the poets John Donne and Emily Dickinson and is in three parts, Negative Love or The Nothing, Because I Could Not Stop For Death and Wild Nights. The work is tonal and harmonic which was a big break for Adams at the time in 1980 and the almost hymn like feel is both beautiful and exciting. The Andriessen work is De Snelheid ( which means velocity ) which is performed here by the ASKO Ensemble under Oliver Knussen. This is mainly a pulsing percussive work with varying and shifting rhythms and minimal instrumental interjections.