1: In the last 30 years the role of percussion in the orchestra, like that of chamber music, has completely changed: once percussion played an episodic part in music, now it is often an essential force. Proliferation abounds there at the risk of anarchy.
2: ...the standards of their manufacture still vary from country to country. This lack of uniformity has given rise to unforseeable and mysterious variations in the last decades, the reasons for which defy logic.
3: Modern percussion is far more than an exotic and primitive display, creating merely the surprise and delights of a walk in a crowded bazaar.
4: No weird collection of sounds can take the place of serious thought. We are in a period where the principle hazards are dispersion and superficiality, and what is needed, as an essential first step, is an investigation into the techniques of such instruments and consequently their reason to be.
