Harrison, Kronus Quartet - Concerto in Slendro / 3 Pieces for Gamelan

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Music reviews of Concerto in Slendro / 3 Pieces for Gamelan

Music Review: Great Introduction to Harrison
Rating: 5 Stars

Concerto in Slendro is a great example of Harrison's "Eastern music with Western instruments" genre. By restricting the tonal material to the Indonesian Slendro scale (a pentatonic scale with half steps) Harrison manages to recreate the sound of a gamelan using violin, celeste, tack piano and percussion. But the piece more than holds it's own against other Gamelan pieces.

The Three pieces for instruments with Sudanese gamelan reverses the processes of Concerto in Slendro. In this piece, western instruments play melodies with accompaniments on a true Gamelan. What remains interesting in this piece is that the composition processes are more evenly divided between western and eastern concepts. If you are familiar with Indonesian gamelan, you would never confuse these pieces with the real thing. They are their own unique genre.

The String Quartet Set shows Harrison's interest in medieval and baroque music. The music is straight forward, utilizing canonic devices and medieval hocketing techniques to create an attractive work that sounds well in the string quartet medium.

Finally, the Suite for Percussion takes us back to Harrison's early days with John Cage, when they would travel from junk yard to junk yard looking for metal tubes, tanks, and old bowls to turn into new percussion instruments. The piece is exciting and full of variety.

All in all, this is a wonderful CD to introduce you to the sound world of this special composer. Buy it. You won't be disappointed.

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