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Six Marimbas
General Info
Year: 1977 / 1986 / 1992
Duration: c. 16:20
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Piano sextet
Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes
Cost: Parts Only (print) - $40.00 | Score Only (print) - $21.99
Instrumentation
Full Score
Percussion (6 players), including:
- Marimba I-II-III-IV-V-VI
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Six Marimbas, composed in 1986, is a rescoring for marimbas of my earlier Six Pianos (1973). The idea to rescore came from my friend, the percussionist James Preiss, who has been a member of my ensemble since 1971 and also contributed the hand and mallet alterations that are used in this score.
The piece begins with three marimbas playing the same eight-beat rhythmic pattern, but with different notes for each marimba. One of the other marimbas begins to gradually build up the exact pattern of one of the marimbas already playing by putting the notes of the fifth beat on the seventh beat, then putting the notes of the first beat on the third beat, and so on, reconstructing the same pattern with the same notes, but two beats out of phase. When this canonic relationship has been fully constructed, the two other marimbas double some of the many melodic patterns resulting from this four marimba relationship. By gradually increasing their volume, they bring these resulting patterns up to the surface of the music; then, by lowering the volume they slowly return them to the overall contrapuntal web, in which the listener can hear them continuing along with many others in the ongoing four-marimba relationship.
This process of rhythmic construction followed by doubling the resulting patterns is then continued in the three sections of the piece that are marked off by changes of mode and gradually higher position on the marimba, the first in D-flat major, the second in E-flat dorian, and the third in B-flat natural minor.
- Program Note by composer
Commercial Discography
- Audio CD: NEXUS Percussion – 2005
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- McGill University Undergraduate Percussion Studio – 11 April 2011
Works for Winds by This Composer
- City Life (arr. Fiumara) (2005/2007)
- Drumming (1971)
- Four Log Drums (1969)
- Mallet Quartet (2009)
- Music for Pieces of Wood (1973)
- New York Counterpoint (1986)
- Sextet
- Six Marimbas (1977/1986/1992)
Resources
- Reich, S. (1992). Six Marimbas [score]. Boosey & Hawkes: New York.
- Steve Reich website Accessed 12 July 2020