Piece Percussionique No.5

Composer Name

General Info

Year: 1970
Duration: c. 10:10
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Canada
Cost: Score and Parts - $0.00 | Score Only - $0.00

Movements

Instrumentation

Player I: Tubular chime(e), temple blocks(5), slap stick, tam tam, tenor drum, suspended cymbal, triangles(2)
Player II: Tubular chime(f#), wood blocks(5), bamboo wind chimes, tam tam, bass drum, suspended cymbal, crotales(2)

With Tape

Program Notes

For information concerning the origin of my "Piece Percussionique" series, see Piece Percussionique No. 1. This is the fifth of my on-going series of percussion ensemble pieces. Besides the microduets, it is my only other series. (Well, okay, you can include the symphonies.) This work is concerned with opposite and retrograde structures superimposed over a larger, seven part palindrome. Like my Sextet composed around the same time, there is a strong concern for structure and architecture, almost to a proto-serial level. I acknowledge this from the influence of my two teachers at the time, Dr. Ramon Fuller and Dr. Lejaren Hiller.

The tape is present in all odd-numbered sections. The percussion is present in all but the first, which may be considered a "solo" for tape. The introductory section (tape alone) is divisible into four alternating entries to a maximum of thirty second intervals. The texture is chordal. Next is a xylophone solo (first percussionist) on a 37 note row divided into groups of one to five pitches and proceeds in a gradual decrescendo from fff to ppp. This is retrograded a fifth lower in the penultimate section on vibraphone (second percussionist). In the third section, the tape presents another transposition of the row with its own retrograde in the other channel. The second percussionist halves the cresendo-diminuendo of the previous section with two simultaneous rolls (large cymbal, fff-ppp-fff and small gong, ppp-fff-ppp). Again, this is reversed in the third last section with the first percussionist using a small cymbal and a large gong. The central section, flanked by loud chime strokes, is a percussion duet. All its durations, dynamics and lengths of ritardandi/accelerandi were determined from random numbers generated by computer and was the first part of the piece to be "composed". For the computer, this generation of some 600 random numbers was tagged Project THETRE (theatre). It also explains the final section of the work. This consists of a gradual build up to an improvised section in which the players are instructed to, among other things, drop, break and throw various objects, and yell; hence the theatrical/visual excitement explicit in the project title. This finale thereby completes the opposites of theater versus music, random versus calculated and, of course, live versus taped sounds. ^[1]

premiere: 23 January 1982, Music Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Beverley Johnston and John Brownell, percussionists

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References

↑ http://www.horwoodcomposer.com/Chamber/PiecePercussioniqueNo5.htm

[1] ttp://www.horwoodcomposer.com/Chamber/PiecePercussioniqueNo5.htm

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