Heinz Hall was the scene Thursday afternoon for one of classical music's rarest events -- the premiere of a successful percussion concerto. "TriplePlay" by John Corigliano proved to be a brilliant compositional achievement, one blessed by a full-dimension performance by soloist Dame Evelyn Glennie, conductor Marin Alsop and the orchestra.
Corigliano spoke to the audience before the premiere and admitted his reluctance to tackle the form that has proved daunting to many other fine composers. There are so many percussion colors but so few sounds that sustain long enough for lyricism. Corigliano has always been an extremely intelligent composer, who once again has met the challenges he defined in planning his work.
The new piece by the Pittsburgh Symphony's composer of the year begins with the soloist playing a cadenza, in which an initial fragment, a gesture, quickly acquires personality.
Corigliano also restricts the orchestra to strings in his new piece, which maintains a simple contrast between solo and orchestra. His mastery of the give-and-take of concerto writing, developed in many other excellent pieces, even gives him the liberty to have the soloist support the strings.
The three movements are divided by the material being struck by the soloist, starting with wood. Glennie's sticks flew over a "keyboard" of 18 un-tuned instruments (such as wood block) placed right behind the marimba, whose notes are arranged in the same pattern as a piano. Corigliano, having established his material, contrasts soloist with string ensemble in a lively dialogue.
The composer chose metal for his lyrical movement. The symbolism of cold metal is false in this case because metallic sounds last longer than those made by struck wood or skin heads. After an arresting beginning for tam-tam and tubular bells, Corigliano created luscious melodic material that the soloist shares with the strings.
The finale is for instruments with skin heads, including timpani, tom toms, bass drum, and talking drum -- on which leg pressure changes pitch. The music alternates between driving and more formally paced ideas and culminates with energy set to maximum.
"TriplePlay" was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and six other organizations.
The concert opened with a cleanly laid-out performance of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem "Romeo and Juliet." The love theme was sufficiently spacious, while the woodwinds in the coda were well-balanced and had winning dynamic range.
Ten movements from suites drawn from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" provided the concert's colorful conclusion.
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