Evelyn Glennie - Ecstatic Drumbeat (2012)

This release is one of a series by the Taipei Chinese Orchestra on which the group collaborates with Western musicians. All are interesting, but this one has the dual attraction of involving Dame Evelyn Glennie, the deaf Scots percussionist who was a longtime denizen of RCA's roster. After that came to an end, it is indeed good to hear her under the care of even better SACD engineers from the Swedish label BIS, working here in Taipei's Zhongshang Hall. In the opening Concerto for percussion and Chinese orchestra of Yiu-Kwong Chung, written for Glennie, her percussion arsenal results in the production of many layers and subtleties of sound, all faithfully reproduced here. It's a thrilling sonic experience and also an interesting cross-cultural experiment that traverses the line between East and West several times. Born to Beat Wild, by Serbian composer Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic, was originally written for trumpet and percussion but is here transcribed for the Chinese double-reed suona (a somewhat beefier oboe). Two works are of Japanese origin and are here given a sort of Chinese makeover. The concerto by Yiu-Kwong Chung, as well as his reworking of a centuries-old Chinese melody in Emperor Qin Crushing the Battle Formations, may be the chief attraction; the idiom here is more specifically Chinese, but the sheer virtuoso complexity of Glennie's part, especially in the concerto, reveals the influence of the Western concerto genre. Glennie has recorded Chinese music in the past, but this release pushes her to new levels, and she delivers. Strongly recommended for those with the slightest interest in this Scottish phenomenon, claimed in the booklet notes (which also appear in Chinese) to be "the first person in musical history successfully to create and maintain a full-time career as a solo percussionist."