Program Notes
Jennifer Higdon
Splendid Wood (2006)
Splendid Wood is a joyful celebration of the sound of wood, one of nature’s most basic materials, which is sublimated in the manufacture of musical instruments. Wood provides the marimba’s unique sound, with a ‘round’ attack followed by a blossoming resonance. This work reflects the ever-changing structures found inside wood, where each part is connected to the others and contributes to the beauty of the whole. It’s a celebration of the beauty of the marimba.
Éric Champagne
Onde de choc (2020, rev. 2022)
The title Onde de choc is not to be taken in its strictest definition, but rather as an allegory for the rhythmic obsession that runs through the work and defines the overall energy that emanates from it. Harmonically, the piece unfolds around two ideas that are at once contradictory and complementary. Each instrument evolves in a consonant, quasi-tonal mode or tone. Paradoxically, the ensemble writing generates sound masses—essentially clusters—that move across the entire register of the instruments. It is the accumulation of these individual features that creates this sound mass (in the tradition of what Ligeti described as a cloud), resulting in a complex, composite harmonic and contrapuntal universe. This harmonic idea is joined by a rhythmic constancy: the pulse is omnipresent, hammered obsessively virtually throughout the piece, and the subdivision into eighth notes and sixteenth notes is also ubiquitous. Through this stream of stubborn rhythms and acidic harmonies, two small, contrasting episodes are inserted—the first more airy in texture, notably exploiting ballet sonorities (replacing traditional baguettes), and the second relying on tremolos to reveal a more diaphanous harmony.
Jordan Nobles
Still Life (2006, rev. 2011)
Originally composed for large choir in 2006, this new version for marimba ensemble was performed for the first time in late 2011. Inspired by the desire to capture a brief moment and stretch it over time—a snapshot of life that will never fade or fade away—Still Life has no clearly discernible rhythm or melody. It’s a monolithic structure, like a cloud, a sunrise, or a tide. But on closer inspection, within the stillness there is always movement.
Balinese Ceremonial Music
I. Pemoengkah (1934, arr. Fabrice Marandola, 2022)
Balinese Ceremonial Music is a transcription of a work originally conceived for two pianos resulting from the work of Canadian composer and ethno-musicologist Colin McPhee. McPhee was one of the first to study Balinese music in detail and draw inspiration from it . . . and who here transposed to the piano original Balinese music heard in Balinese shadow theater and funeral ceremonies. The musical principles here are based on the repetition of short melodic cells and the interweaving of parts.
Steve Reich
Six Marimbas (1986)
Six Marimbas is a transcription for marimbas of the piece Six Pianos created in 1973. The idea for this transcription came from my friend, percussionist James Preiss, a member of my ensemble since 1971, who advised me in particular on the choice and handling of the mallets used in this score. The piece begins with three marimbas playing the same eight-beat rhythmic motif, but with different notes for each marimba. Then, a fourth marimba gradually begins to reproduce the same rhythmic motif, shifting certain notes until it is reconstructed in a manner that is out of sync with the initial motif. As the four marimbas play in canon, the other two double certain rhythmic motifs. By gradually increasing their nuance, they emphasize these motifs. Then, by lowering the volume, they slowly return to the contrapuntal fabric, in which the listener can continue to hear them. This process of rhythmic and dynamic construction is continued throughout the three parts of the piece, which are themselves marked by changes of mode: the first in D-flat major, the second in E-flat Dorian, and the third in B-flat minor.
