American percussion works

"In this field of music, the Minimalist, John Cage, was a major contributor, going outside of the long held tonal quality that was always created music. He has here replaced it with rhythm and movement that forms the building blocks of his 1939 score, First Construction (in Metal) ... It is for the listener a difficult work to comprehend, so much so that I would suggest the newcomer to percussion 'music', should move to Lou Harrison's three-movement Violin Concerto. Here the soloist is playing a melodic role together with lengthy cadenzas ... The most extended score comes from Alberto Ginastera with a cantata based on Columbian texts ... It takes the solo singer high in the register and proves a challenge for the highly acclaimed Danish-born, Signe Asmussen. Finally we have Edgard Varese's Ionisation ... Wide in dynamic, the performance of Percurama is exhilarating. A disc that invites our thoughts and preconceptions of 'music', but one that is valuable".

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"Signe Asmussen is the dramatic soprano in Ginastera's Cantata para América mágica - treatments, often tumultuous, of pre-Columbian texts. By contrast, Cage's First Construction (in Metal) is ingenious mood music. A Lou Harrison concerto juxtaposes sweeping figuration and the obdurately unlyrical. Then comes Varèse's brief but influential Ionisation".