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Hk Gruber: Percussion Concertos on CD

Colin Currie presents the first concerto album on his label, a pairing of works by the innovative Viennese composer, conductor and chansonnier HK Gruber. Written for Currie and dating from 2010, "into the open..." focuses on tuned and pitched percussion. Gruber's emotionally vast music serving as a moving epitaph - energetic, enigmatic and eventually desperate as the final sections gradually and dissonantly break apart the entire orchestral edifice. The increasing depth of the silences offering little more than hollow, raw grief. A sense of scandal and anarchy are implied already in the title of the album's second piece, the "Rough Music" in question is a reference to the hounding out of waywardly sinful citizens of a bygone era, in a bizarre and clamorous street-ritual designed to draw attention to those that dared to err. Percussion here is at the forefront of the accusatory activity and each movement title refracts the concept; "Toberac", "Shivaree" and "Charivari" all different versions of the same concept, from slightly differing peoples.