Word: marimbas
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...become a cocoon. I try to sleep but am kept in a semiwaking state by our guides talking softly in Sranan Tongo, a lingua franca mixture of English, Dutch, Portuguese and West African languages, and by the chirping of frogs and birds. Insects make a sound like an endless marimba. There are showers of natural debris--rodents tossing away shells and bits of fruit. I am certain that I hear an animal poking around under my head. Mittermeier confesses that even after all his years of experience, he has never become accustomed to the night sounds...
Given the general indifference to new music, and the unlikely case that anyone might be familiar with the repertoire of solo marimba works, the circumstances of such a concert are daunting. Public appeal for such an occasion would seem at best very small. What was it then that brought almost 100 people into a crowded Adams House LCR last Friday evening? What was it that made new music what it should be: vital, ecstatic...
...which, including the piece by Kissel herself, were written by women. Such new music for a relatively new instrument creates an interesting circumstance for most audiences: expectation defined by the instrument itself, rather than a repertoire of standard works or recordings of well known performers. In many ways, the marimba is a very limited instrument. The wood bars that generate the sound make subtle fluctuations of pitch (vibrato) impossible. The metal tubes under each bar--the resonators--provide only a few seconds worth of audible sustain. The use of four mallets, two to a hand, limits the simultaneous articulation...
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...
...complaint is necessary, this rhythmic consistency, along with the primarily diatonic harmonies of most of the 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...