On 3 May Chanmin Chung conducts Carl Vine’s Percussion Symphony with Sinfonieorchester Aachen, as part of ‘Around the World’ – a panorama of diverse sound worlds and traditions. The 22-minute piece, a tour-de-force for four percussionists and orchestra, celebrates its 30th birthday this year, and is the fifth of eight symphonies in Vine’s output to date.
Composed in 1995 for the Synergy percussion group and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, it is cast in three movements. A glowering, dramatic opening is succeeded by a decisive, syncopated music with Latin-American inflections. The core of the symphony is an extended slow movement (with a rapid bridge at its centre) which provides room for lyrical solos from woodwind and brass, with the percussionists offering commentary and at times coming to the fore. The finale takes the form of a wild tarantella, subject to a frenzied acceleration driven by unpitched drums of various flavours and fuelling the orchestral fire.
It was recorded in 2013 alongside Vine’s other symphonies by Edo de Waart and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Receiving over fifty performances to date, its exponents have included the Melbourne Symphony and Queensland Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife, and Filarmonic de Bogota. James MacMillan conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in two performances of the piece in 2004.
In 2012 it was choreographed by Terence Kohler for West Australian for the Perth Festival, receiving 16 performances at the spectacular Quarry Amphitheatre. The resulting work, Rhetoric, was inspired by online multiplayer role-playing games, and saw the dancers costumed in medieval suits-of-armour, their warring factions in violent, thrilling collision.