Percurama Percussion Ensemble, Jean Thorel

Cage: First Construction in Metal (1939) for seven percussionists
Ginastera: Cantata para América mágica, Op. 27
Harrison, L: Concerto for Violin & Percussion Orchestra
Varèse: Ionisation (Live)

"American Percussion Works is a rare collection of seldom heard works each with specific rules or themes as a basis for the compositions. In John Cage’s First Construction the principle is based on the figure 16. Alberto Ginastera’s work Cantata para América Mágica, uses pre-Columbian texts based on the conditions of human life, with war, natural phenomena, daybreak, night and love. Lou Harrison mixes non-European forms which ‘follow the pattern of having a single melodic part accompanied (or enhanced) by rhythmic percussion’ in his Koncherto. Varèse’s Ionisation also enters a new land being his first solely percussive work where ‘he finds a new grammar for the language of music’."