Duo duel ; Concerto for orchestra (2023)

"Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra forms the bulk of the music on this virtuosic recording, featuring full symphony orchestra with a huge percussion section, harp and celeste. Using challenging techniques, she makes specific demands on the percussionists, producing lovely colours such as bowed vibraphone. The whirlwind opening in the first movement instantly sets the high-energy mood, though is anticipatory rather than menacing. After the string-based jig of the second movement, the piece really settles in the third, and here the orchestration is spectacular; harmonics on the upper strings, coupled with glockenspiel and tubular bells, lovely ‘falling away’ sounds in the violins and, later, a vibrant use of different timpani timbres, with sonoric hints of Britten’s Sea Interludes." (classical-music.com)