Any percussionists or devotees of percussion owe it to themselves to investigate this remarkable collection of works performed by French virtuoso Roland Auzet. The set includes three CDs with 13 substantial pieces, about half of them recorded for the first time, as well as a DVD of Auzet playing two Xenakis solos, Psappha and Rebonds. Those two works, along with Yoshihisa Taïra's Convergence, are the only purely solo works on the set; the rest also involve either electronics, voices, or orchestra. The music is largely ...
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Any percussionists or devotees of percussion owe it to themselves to investigate this remarkable collection of works performed by French virtuoso Roland Auzet. The set includes three CDs with 13 substantial pieces, about half of them recorded for the first time, as well as a DVD of Auzet playing two Xenakis solos, Psappha and Rebonds. Those two works, along with Yoshihisa Taïra's Convergence, are the only purely solo works on the set; the rest also involve either electronics, voices, or orchestra. The music is largely modernist or postmodern, and the inclusion of an arrangement of Milhaud's Concerto pour marimba, vibraphone et orchestre sounds somewhat out of place. The quality of Auzet's selections is consistently high -- these are all substantive works, and the Xenakis pieces are classics of the repertoire. In addition to the two works mentioned, Auzet performs his Kassandra, a vocal and dramatic tour de force for bass (who sings for the most part in falsetto) and percussion, in which he is joined by...
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