Violin and Percussion Music from NEC

courtesy of Naxos of America

This Friday Naxos will release an album entitled Works for Violin and Percussion Orchestra. The violinist is Nicholas Kitchen; and the percussionists are members of the New England Conservatory (NEC) Percussion Ensemble, led by Frank Epstein. As is usually the case, Amazon is currently processing pre-orders for this new recording.

The album consists of three compositions, the first and last of which are receiving their world premiere recordings. The first of these is “Xochiquetzal,” composed by Robert Xavier Rodríguez in 2014. The album concludes with a concerto for violin and percussion orchestra composed by Kati Agócs in 2018. Between these two selections is another such concerto, this one composed by Lou Harrison. He completed this composition in 1959 but had begun work on it in 1940.

Each of these pieces has its own characteristic voice. However, because of the breadth of resources that inspired Harrison’s ethnographic interests, there is some sense of “family resemblance” between his concerto and “Xochiquetzal,” which is structured as five uninterrupted movements. The latter can be approached as “imaginary folk music,” a term that Rodríguez appropriated from Manuel de Falla.

Rodríguez prepared his own notes for the booklet, where he explains that his title is the name of “an ancient Mayan goddess associated with music, dance, beauty, love, fertility and female sexual power.” Each of the movements reflects on a different aspect of this protagonist, and the composer’s skill at combining a wide diversity of percussion instruments with the solo violin (which represents Xochiquetzal) makes for engaging listening. Nevertheless, while Rodríguez’ voice is decidedly unique, Harrison’s concerto provides excellent “orientation” for the listener, introducing rhetorical tropes that would prepare the listener for the more narrative qualities of “Xochiquetzal.”

Agócs’ concerto, on the other hand, is based on an entirely different lexicon of tropes for both the violin and the percussion accompaniment. Nevertheless, there are signs of her awareness of Harrison’s lyrical qualities, including some not usually associated with members of the percussion family. What particularly strikes the attentive listener is her ability to overlay a variety of thematic tropes, creating the effect that the listener feels surrounded by a stimulating simultaneity of competing voices. I was also more than moderately pleased to see that, in his capacity as teacher, Milton Babbitt did not let his interest in mathematics interfere with his approach to coaching Agócs!