Georg Druschetzky's concertos and concert pieces for multiple tympani and orchestra may hold interest for scholars as documents of the truly unusual in Classical music, and some practical value for tympanists in search of obscure repertoire; but the general listener will be mildly amused for about five minutes, and then grow impatient with these mediocre showpieces. The Concerto for six tympani and orchestra opens in C major -- as do all these works, due to fixed tuning -- and seems pleasant enough, if a little silly, like a joke by Mozart or Haydn. But as the piece progresses, the limited pitches, the restricted availability of keys, and the excessive use of tonic and dominant figures in the thundering solo part become extremely tiresome. The Concerto for oboe, eight tympani and orchestra offers more timbral variety and a fully diatonic tuning of the tympani, but the work's banality is pervasive, and the novelty has by this point worn off. Only the most stalwart listener will delve further into the Partita, the Gran Sinfonia, or Ungaria, which perhaps show Druschetzky to have been an ingenious promoter, but third-rate as a composer. One trusts that tympanist
Zoltán Rácz and the Erdody Chamber Orchestra, under
György Vashegyi, enjoyed themselves in performing these peculiar pieces, but their evident pleasure is insufficient enough to alleviate the boredom these works induce. Hungaroton's sound quality is fine.