Percussion in Concert

Bertold Hummel: Concerto for Percussion and Large Orchestra, Op. 70
Paul Creston: Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra
Darius Milhaud: Concerto for Marimba, Vibraphone and Orchestra

Peter Sadlo
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
Wolfgang Rögner

Recorded in February/April 1996

Bayerischer Rundfunk CD recommendation:

J.S. Bach would certainly have taken great pleasure in this concerto for percussion and orchestra by Bertold Hummel, whose second movement plays with the famous B-A-C-H motif in a highly original way. Bach himself, after all, composed in a strongly rhythm-oriented style even in his church cantatas, which earned him harsh criticism from devout Christians during his lifetime (‘dance-like trifles’). In his concerto for percussion and orchestra, Bertold Hummel bridges the gap from B-A-C-H to the twentieth century with the note sequence D-S-C-H, standing for Dmitri Shostakovich. A tribute to music history, brimming with musical expressiveness, gravity and depth. This work, which premiered in 1985, is brilliantly interpreted by Peter Sadlo on his new CD ‘Percussion in Concert’. Sadlo is the masterful conductor as he, together with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Wolfgang Rögner, brings everything the percussion has to offer to life. The term ‘virtuoso’ is merely a feeble description here. One cannot help but think of those Indian deities with more than just two arms when listening to Peter Sadlo as he brings his percussion battery – including the vibraphone and marimba – to life with wood and skin. Peter Sadlo delivers percussion that could not be more effective, exciting or sonically sophisticated, yet which does not stop at mere spectacle. Bertold Hummel’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra is the centrepiece of this CD.

Jürgen Seeger