Word: instruments
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...than a dead spacecraft. It had been two orbits since mission control had stabilized Mir, but while controllers had been able to stop the station's rotation, they hadn't been able to point it toward anything useful. With the solar panels still in shadow, the cabin lights and instrument panels went dead, and the fans and pumps that gave the spacecraft the atmosphere of a low-decibel boiler room fell silent. Huddling together in the main module, Tsibliyev, Lazutkin and Foale spent a few serene hours watching Earth roll silently by. All that disturbed their reverie was the periodic...
...brief, meditative piece dominated by a single, poignant melody. Predominantly homophonic, registral spacing and changes in tempo demarcated the basic two-part form. Though perhaps a bit too short and lacking development, the B-1work succeeded in conveying a strong sentiment, proving again the expressive capacity of the instrument...
...lyricism is a challenge, rhythm is entirely idiomatic to this instrument. The program was dominated by groove; that is, in almost every piece the music was underpinned by rhythmic regularity, be it the ocean-like undulations of the opening chords of Keiko Abe's Memories of the Seashore, the fantastic polyrhythms of Rhythm Song by paul Zadbeck or the intricate arpeggios, executed at amazing speeds, of Keiko Abe's Michi...
Michi, introduced by Kissel as one of the most powerful pieces written for marimba, easily lived up to its preface, exploiting the entire dynamic and registral capacity of the instrument. Beginning with complex arpeggios, the piece unfolds into a mass of sound of almost orchestral density. The abrupt pause that followed filled the room with a tremendous resonance. Kissel succeeded in making not only the instrument but the entire room sing with a resonance of unprecedented duration. After a contrasting section in the upper register, compositionally disappointing in Abe's almost banal use of functional harmony, the return...
...works, made the program a bit too homogenous. The one admittedly "atonal" work, Two Movements for Marimba by Toshimitsu Tanaka, provided a welcome contrast to the harmonic vocabulary of the other works. With a change of mallets, Kissel brought out the greatest diversity of color and texture from the instrument. Perhaps one of the most dramatic works on the program, the piece's opening gestural fragments are later contrasted with homophonic and polyphonic textures. Arriving at a moving climax, Kissel superimposed complex passage work over a furiously pounded drone in the bass...