Aforismer

Michael Bønsdorf

General Info

Year of Published: 2020
Publisher: Edition Sviter
Difficulty: Advanced
Duration: 00:04:00
Price: €16.00

Instrumentation

Marimba
Roto-toms (16" & 14")

Review

This solo was written for Kasper Thiesson in 1997 with a revised edition published in 2020. It is labeled as “advanced” by the publisher with a run-time of approximately four minutes. While it’s mostly in 2/4 and 4/4, there are some small segments of 7/8.

You don’t see very many marimba pieces written with Roto Toms. Throughout the three sections of the piece, this addition is treated in various ways: sometimes as its own melody, sometimes as an echo of the marimba melody, and others as accompaniment. There are many instances of interesting rhythmic interaction throughout that plays with alternating sextuplets and quintuplets between the instruments.

If you have played music written for marimba to be played with other instruments simultaneously, you’ll know that setup is key to play both instruments successfully. There is no setup diagram on the publisher website, so performers will be left to discover their own. It will help, however, that the marimba parts can be played on a keyboard as small as a 4-octave.

—Ben Cantrell