In her introductory note to Hit List, her series of three Evelyn Glennie-and-friends concerts, the percussionist emphasises that they are not intended for critics. No one seems to have told the press desk, and a few of us slipped in anyway. She also says that she doesn't like leaving concerts feeling that every piece on the programme was "nice". In that case, I hope she won't be too offended by this review.
Not that the musicians' technical ability was in question. But at times the nature of the concert seemed an excuse for ill-considered programming and self-indulgence. There had been little time for rehearsal - trombonist Christian Lindberg had just flown in that afternoon - and Glennie insisted that we should feel we were eavesdropping on an evening's jam session rather than sitting in judgment on a polished concert. But is the Wigmore Hall, memorably described by Vikram Seth as "the sacred shoe-box of chamber music", the right venue for this?
The most gratifying items proved to be those that were through-composed rather than improvised. The evening started off promisingly enough, Glennie being joined by trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger for Born to Beat Wild, a new piece by the Serbian composer Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic. The items that followed, however, seemed conceived only to make the audience laugh. Tuba player Oren Marshall shuffled on as though attempting a Tommy Cooper impression; his solo on an instrument customised to produce rasps, squeaks and whistles rather than notes did nothing to convince us that the tuba isn't the joke instrument of the orchestra. Nor did Christian Lindberg's own rather underwhelming pieces leave much room for him to display his considerable musicianship.
Things looked up eventually, though, with Glennie joined by pianist Philip Smith for Dave Heath's 1997 work Darkness to Light, and Zivkovic's marimba solo Ilijas, a flowing yet distorted reflection of a folk dance.
Marshall's second improvisation, duetting with his own sampled and electronically manipulated phrases, was more rewarding. The combination of piano and cymbals in Roberto Sierra's piece Los Destellos de la Resonancia was especially felicitous. And Kit Bones and Hawk Hardon, by the Swedish composer Fredrik Hogberg, had Lindberg's and Hardenberger's alter egos slugging it out as if in a saloon shoot-out, duelling together, breaking off only to grunt in mock pain, growl choice Clint Eastwood one-liners or courteously turn the page.
There's a lot of good music around now involving percussion (Glennie should know - she commissioned much of it) but by being so staunchly eclectic, and relying on the goodwill of her audience, she risks losing her powers of discrimination.
