This rather attractive album highlights the virtuosity of American percussionist Lee Hinkle, principal percussionist of the 21st Century Consort (based in and around Washington DC and Maryland) and a concerto soloist of 10 years’ standing who has been making recordings for a similar length of time. The present album is his second of concertos for Ravello (the first came out in 2017), and he has recorded other albums for Navona, Albany and other labels.

Steven Stucky (1949-2016) composed his five-movement Concerto with wind orchestral accompaniment in 2001 to mark the retirement of Donald Hunsberger after four decades with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. The soloist, Gordon Stout, wanted Stucky to ‘range widely across the range of percussion families’, and Stucky took him at his word. The opening Energico concentrates on wooden instruments and drums, the succeeding Moderato delicato on marimba and steel drum, adding glockenspiel and xylophone for the central Vivace. The celebratory mood vanishes in the fourth movement, Grave, dedicated to the victims of the Twin Towers attack. Over a pulsing bass drum, gongs and bells lament and resonate in grief before being blown away by the onslaught of metallic percussion in the finale.

Hinkle’s mastery of each instrument is never in doubt as he brings Stucky’s mercurial, wide-ranging invention together. In Maurice Wright’s Concertpiece (1993), that intense musicality is focused wholly on the marimba. Light and entertaining as it is, even Hinkle’s formidable playing cannot disguise that the Brillante finale is just too long. No caveats, though, for Evan Ziporyn’s Impulse Control (2019), a convincing diptych of unequal parts scored for drum set (aka drum kit) and orchestra, and a tour de force of percussion-writing. The three ensembles provide Hinkle with superb support, showing a depth of ensemble richness most countries can be but envious of. Ravello’s sound is first-rate without being spectacular.