James Wood

Stoicheia is the work in which James Wood summed up more than ten years of systematic exploration of what percussion instruments can express. Composed in 1987 and 1988, it lasts about sixty-five minutes and is scored for two percussion soloists, two percussion ensembles, four keyboards and electronics. This Wergo disc is its recording, with the composer among the players.

Wood is a British composer, percussionist and conductor, born in 1953 in Barton on Sea, who taught percussion in Darmstadt from 1982 to 1994. The work was first performed there in August 1988 by Steven Schick and Wood with the Darmstadt Percussion Ensemble. On the recording the same two soloists lead what the score calls the Earth group, with the Darmstadt players as its chorus. The Constellation group, directed by James Robinson, brings in the Cornwall Percussion Ensemble on bells and four keyboard players, among them Eleanor Alberga. The sessions took place at All Saints', Petersham, in London. John Whiting engineered and handled the sound diffusion, and Wood produced with Simon Limbrick.

The form is a large arch. Four short Seasons, between one and a half and five minutes each, frame three long Parts of about thirteen, seventeen and twenty-two minutes, so the music grows heavier as it goes. The two soloists stand against a chorus of six percussionists, while the bells and keyboards of the second group form a separate layer, and the electronics are diffused in the space. Schott describes the result as a grand panorama of rhythm and sound, and as an invitation to those who take part in the magic and rituals of percussion.

Percussion is only one side of Wood's work. He founded the New London Chamber Choir in 1981, and he set up the London Centre for Microtonal Music and the Critical Band ensemble, which he conducted from 1990 to 1994. His catalogue includes many percussion pieces and new instruments of his own construction. For this release he also wrote the liner notes, in English and German, and took the cover photograph.

CD, Wergo WER 6194 2, released in 1990.