Klassik Heute praises A Pacifying Weapon
"With this “American” record, Petri's series of concerts for recorder and orchestra from different countries ends for the time being and with Sean Hickey (born 1970) one of the best known and most successful American composers of his generation has been won over.
Hickey's three-movement concert A Pacifying Weapon (in German: a reassuring weapon or - roughly translated: a tool of peace) was created in 2015 for recorder, wind instruments, percussion and harp, an original line-up, albeit not for the first time: the Swedish one Composer Ingvar Karkoff and the Austrian Viktor Fortin have composed concert works for the recorder and symphonic wind orchestra. What makes Hickey's work so unmistakable, however, is his distinctly American sound language - eclectic in the best sense of the word and combining influences from very different worlds and styles, Hickey succeeds in creating a convincing and often extremely sensual piece in which the recorder palette (from sopranino to bass) is many beautiful dialogues and chamber music sequences combined with the various wind and percussion instruments of the orchestra. For Hickey, the recorder, this instrument, which is basically thousands of years old, is a tool of peace in a world that is becoming increasingly unpeaceful. The attractive, dazzling score and the extraordinary recording were recently awarded the gold medal at the Global Music Awards 2017, and rightly so.
(translated from German)
