Concerto No.2 for Percussion Section, Timpani & Orchestra

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Composer Name

Schwantner, Joseph

General Info

Year: 2011
Duration: c.
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Helicon
Cost: Score and Parts - $0.00   |   Score Only - $0.00

Instrumentation

Player I:
Player II:

Program Notes

Concerto No. 2 was commissioned by the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) on the occasion of the Society's 50th Anniversary (1961-2011) and first performed at the 2011 Percussive Arts Society International Convention with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra percussion section.
"Concerto No. 2" employs a diverse array of both traditional and non-traditional percussion instruments including timbaletas, bucket drums, rainsticks, water triangles, waterphone, Tibetan singing bowls, stainless steel mixing bowls, and amplified marimba. The work is cast in three movements and calls for a quartet of soloists (three percussionists and timpanist).
The fast first movement's ("Feroce") largescale design opens with the four soloists collaboratively playing a series of assertive bass drum and timpani gestures followed by sharp low-register orchestral punctuations and rapid, spiky high-register phrases in the piccolo and flutes. The opening two measures establish the basic "call and response" relationship between the percussion and orchestra. Following this is a "heartbeat" motive in the bass drums that slowly unfolds in a choral-like orchestral texture that builds to a climax; this motive draws its association from the "heartbeat" bass drum idea that occurs in the second slow movement of Schwantner's first percussion concerto. The highly rhythmic movement proceeds with continuous shifting meters and concludes with an expanded return to the opening materials.
The slow second movement ("Misterioso e buio") features piccolo, English horn, bass clarinet, and marimba (amplified, two players), while the brass remain silent throughout. During the opening, three repeated bowed tam-tam gestures and dark pedal tones in the piano, harp, and double bass underlay a highly contrasting and unrestrained bass clarinet solo (con calore e furioso). The second section explores the deep resonant melodic and harmonic sonorities of the marimba (two players, eight mallets). The movement's third section includes instruments that reside on an amplification table: waterphone, Tibetan singing bowls, metal mixing bowls, water triangles, bell trees, and metal windchimes. The percussion soloists improvise with these instruments creating a delicate sonic backdrop to an elegiac English horn solo leading to the final section that introduces a high and intense piccolo solo based on the earlier bass clarinet music. The movement finally "drifts away" with gradually fading ethereal high string harmonics.
The third movement ("con fervor") is fast and engages all of the drums, first as a collective ensemble followed by individual improvised solos. The final section introduces bucket drums in a spirited "give and take" of improvised cadenzas concluding, coda-like, with materials from the first movement. Notes adapted from the Composer's Program Notes.

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