As a percussionist, I confess that I am, in general, not a big fan of music that features percussion. I did not start playing because of a fascination with Bonzo's Montreux, either of the Black Pages, nor Toad. There are few things less intriguing to me than sitting through an hour-long recital of Delecluse. And, frankly, though there are concerti for timpani dating back centuries, the notion is a little silly—though, I'd rather that, or some of the marimba concerti, which at least have pitch, to just some mutiple-percussion work. Ultimately, though, it always comes down to what one does with the instruments, doesn't it? Even a bass drum concerto could be intriguing in the right hands—both the composer's and the performer's hands, that is.

But, to run the risk of oversimplifying here, because of some truly outstanding works which actually did feature some percussion (the classic example, for me, is Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion), there seems to have been a bit of a bandwagon syndrome in the 20th century, and there are countless percussion ensemble works which have bashing first movements, evocative second movements, and back-to-bashing third movements.

Enter Dame Evelyn Glennie. She has done more than most to foster the idea that the percussionist could be a serious, viable soloist in the orchestral setting. Playing with a great deal of élan, she has premiered scores of works and played to enthusiastic audiences worldwide. She has, almost as an aside, increased the general public's understanding of the variant types of deafness and has served as an inspiration to countless numbers of those who live with some form of deafness. (Did I forget to mention she's profoundly deaf?) Here she is in the opening of Richard Rodney Bennett's Concerto for Solo Percussion and Chamber Orchestra, a not-bad piece, dedicated to Glennie, by a well-known composer.