Bach to the Future

Safri Duo (Conductor), Per Norgard (Artist), Steve Reich (Artist), Wayne Siegel (Artist), Jacob Ter Veldhuis (Artist), Thomas Dausgaard (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Safri Duo
• Audio CD (May 19, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Chandos
• ASIN: B000005Z70
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,112 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Something to be desired, November 30, 2005

By 

Dr. Christopher Coleman (HONG KONG) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bach to the Future (Audio CD)

The Safri Duo consists of two percussionists; Uffe Savery and Morten Friis; and recently they've turned to performing pop music. But much of their earlier work was in the area of contemporary art music, and it is from that area that this disc appears. Five compositions by four composers are included: Per Norgard's Bach to the Future for percussion duo and orchestra; Steve Reich's Nagoya Marimba and Music for Pieces of Wood; Wayne Siegel's 42nd Street Rondo; and Jacob ter Veldhuis's Goldrush Concerto, again for percussion duo and orchestra.

Norgard's concerto, Bach to the Future, is a twenty minute fantasy on three Bach Preludes from The Well-Tempered Clavier; there's a certain playful fascination in hearing notes from the C major prelude spread out among some unusual orchestral combinations, like muted trumpet, vibraphone, and violin. Purists will of course be horrified, and some of us will be amused, but I suspect that the most common reaction will be indifference. Other Norgard pieces, especially I Ching for percussion solo, are so much more intriguing.

The two Reich pieces similarly fail to inspire. I'm not a big fan of Nagoya Marimbas, and I have to report that while the Safri Duo play the notes and rhythms superbly, the dynamics are too restrained and the piece comes off less well than it might. It's in the Music for Pieces of Wood, though, that the Safri Duo do the most harm. This composition is for five percussionists each playing a set of tuned claves. Claves a pair of hard wood sticks struck together with a very crisp, incisive sound; one stick rests on the fingers of the closed (left) hand, and the other is held in the right hand and struck against it. Safri Duo, in a display of bravado, play all five parts themselves, presumably without overdubbing; consequentially they cannot play the piece on the instruments it is written for. They substitute log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks and the like, and the piece loses much of its special charm as a result. I suppose that in these instrumental substitutions they're doing something of what Per Norgard does to Bach's music, but at its best Norgard's arrangements have an enriching effect while this substitution has the opposite effect.

Wayne Seigel's 42nd Street Rondo is a five minute duet in which each performer has a matching set of mixed, untuned percussion instruments. The composer writes: "the title refers to the conrner of 42nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, where street musicians often perform" and the composition demonstrates this rhythmic street vitality. This is one of my favorite pieces on the disc; others will surely be driven to distraction by it. Its somewhat similar to the sound world of the percussion group Stomp who play lots of "found percussion" instruments.

Jacob ter Veldhuis's Goldrush Concerto is the longest piece on the CD. It was generated by one of Veldhuis's earlier compositions, "Gold Rush". The Safri Duo make their way through a large number of percussion instruments, including a drum machine that plays voice samples from films such as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I must admit that I find these voice samples extremely disturbing and out of place in the sense of the piece--I'm sure they're supposed to be amusing, but they upset the whole feel of the work for me. Otherwise, the Goldrush Concerto is a lively, well-written piece that is quite attractive with a terrifically exciting finale, and which features some amazing performances.

3.0 out of 5 stars Norgard's second percussion concerto has a curious dual basis, April 12, 2009

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bach to the Future (Audio CD)

I came across this Chandos disc as a Per Norgard completist and so will limit my review to the great Danish composer's contribution here. The percussion concerto "Bach to the Future" (1994-95) comes to some extent from two earlier pieces written for the Safri Duo, and which have been released on earlier Chandos disc. The first, "Echo Zone I-III" (1991-93), was an often furious exchange of beats between two percussionists seated at opposite ends of the stage. As the independent actions of the drummers added up to a curious whole, and the whole challenged listeners to separate the parts, the piece showed that there's still a lot of wonder in stereophonic effects. In 1993 wrote a piece for the Safri Duo called "Well-Tempered Percussionists". This was a setting of three Bach preludes with not a single note changed, but with a variation of timbres that revealed golden section structures "hidden" in the original.

The concerto treats those two earlier pieces as sketches for one much bigger work. The basis of the musical line remains the Bach preludes, but Norgard has written vast harmonies around them that are expressed by the orchestra. No longer does the material sound like a slavishly faithful arrangement of the Bach, but sometimes wanders where Norgard's fancy takes it. The first movement of "Bach to the Future" is a gentle exploration of timbres on Bach's Prelude in C major, with its form inspired by "Resonances", the first part of "Echo Zone I-III". In the second movement, the orchestra maintains Bach's Prelude in F sharp minor while the soloists are somewhere else entirely, quoting from "Re-Percussion", the second part of "Echo Zone I-III". In the third movement the percussionists join the orchestra's Prelude in D minor on pitched percussion, and the mood is one of reconciliation.

This is entertaining music. Somehow it doesn't feel like one of Norgard's major works, and out of this trio of mutually related pieces, perhaps "Echo Zone I-III" is the only truly great one. It's curious that both of Norgard's percussion concertos are based on earlier solo or duo material (the first concerto was "For a Change", an orchestration of "I Ching"), and both have fallen somewhat into obscurity. Nonetheless, Norgard's typical concerns are here, namely interference between different musical planes and aperiodic rhythms. It's worth checking out for fans of Norgard, and may serve as a good introduction to Norgard's approach for a listener whose tastes normally run to the Baroque era.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bach to the Future, May 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Bach to the Future (Audio CD)

An excellent CD with great compositions, and wonderful sound! An excellent addition to any percussion CD collection.