The composers commissioned included Elliott Carter, Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, Joan Tower, Peter Child, Jennifer Higdon, Fred Lerdahl, and Robert Xavier Rodriguez. The pieces range enormously in length and instrumentation, and in the sound worlds they inhabit — from the festive folk-tinged journey of Rodriguez’s “El Día de los Muertos,” to the splashy exuberance of Higdon’s “Splendid Wood” (for three marimbas), to the pristine complexities of Carter’s “Tintinnabulation” (completed at age 99). The performances, almost all of them led by Epstein himself, are exacting and high-caliber.

Many of the composers represented here seemed to treat the rare assignment of writing for percussion ensemble as license to think both boldly and playfully. © 2013 The Boston Globe Read complete review

Elliott Carter’s Tintinnabulation was commissioned by the New England Conservatory and first performed in 2008. It consists of three main sections, for unpitched wood, metal and finally ‘skin’, with each of the six percussionists assigned one or more instruments—of which there is an amazing array—from each grouping. The work is typical Carter, best described as an orgy of tone colour, with few concessions to the unexpecting listener even in his ‘late’ period!

England-born Peter Child’s Refrain is another NEC commission, again for six percussionists, but this time with a considerably downsized arsenal, mainly wood and metal. The meaning of the title is not clear from the music, but this is a rhythmic, approachable piece with some inventive contrasts in colour and dynamics especially.

Edward Cohen’s Acid Rain introduces a pair of pianos with imagination, enriching the texture of the two glockenspiels, vibraphones and chimes. The overall effect of the piece is of drive and noise and excitement—not what anyone would normally call “clangorous”, but the Naxos blurb does—as well as a fair amount of repetition, but without resort to lazy minimalism. Memorable.

Back to six percussionists for John Harbison’s three-movement Cortège, and a third commission by the NEC. Written in memory of Harbison’s friend, the composer Donald Sur (1936–99), Cortège is another battery of exotic sounds, one of which, the conch, is not even percussion. The piece is enigmatic rather than melancholic or morbid, and has an improvised feel about it that adds to rather than subtracts from the interest.

Finally, Fred Lerdahl’s innovative work, The First Voices, for eight percussionists and soprano, mezzo-soprano and alto, provides—possibly—the justification for the trite opening quotation by Rousseau, whose long-winded Essay on the Origins of Languages (not “Language”, as printed in Lerdahl’s liner note) posited the co-evolution of music and language. Yet another NEC commission, The First Voices is a striking mixture of forceful percussive rhythms from Africa and contemporary American singing.

The NEC Percussion Ensemble turn more....