I don’t know. My inner jury is still out, though I have a feeling it won’t come back with good news. What bothered me a bit ever since the first time I listened, you see, is that whatever musically audacious aspirations you may have — difficult to say from listening to this one piece — they are severely hampered by the ball-and-chain of comfortable diatonicism, convention and creative timidity. To me, this is music that brings to mind the poor cat in Shakespeare’s adage, the animal that lets “I dare not” wait upon “I would”.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking:
(1) You present and introduce your work as you deem best of course, but I don’t think the work is accurately described as “a dramatic, powerful and gripping piece for a world class marimbist”. I can’t say I heard any ‘drama’ (unless the good-natured, friendly interplay between the solo instrument and the string quartet qualifies as drama these days), I didn’t find it particularly ‘powerful’ either, and ‘gripping’ would be the last adjective that I’d use trying to describe my listening experience. Not that it’s bad or anything, absolutely not, it’s just that most of the music came and went, and … well, … that’s it. I allowed it to do so three or four times in a row during the past two days — it’s all a bit of a blur now, I must say — and each time the music simply slid off me like raindrops on an oilskin coat. Now, music needn’t be powerful, dramatic or gripping to be enjoyable, so I hope these things can be said without causing offense.
(2) How precisely this music is supposed to evoke, or relate to, the Damocles theme is completely beyond me as well, I must say. What you have here is, by and large, very accessible, easy-on-the-ear and completely conflict-free music. To my ears anyway. Largely diatonic too in its defining features. The tale of Damocles and Dyonisus II of Syracuse however, is one of gnawing jealousy, ruthless power, tyranny, threat, uninhibited decadence, impending doom and a brooding, sinister darkness. Try as I may, I really can’t connect the two. But I suppose this is of little importance. Then again, I can’t imagine the piece got its title by chance.
(3) I’m also of the opinion — we’re back with the music itself now — that the piece is rather poorly written for the marimba. The solo part, in other words, rarely speaks genuine marimbese, I find.
If you should learn that seasoned marimba players don’t seem all that keen on performing this piece, I’m convinced it’ll have nothing to do with the part being too difficult — technically, it sounds like mostly standard first grade fare to me, actually — but because it’s simply not an idiomatic, interesting or inspiring enough marimba part. A good player, and I’m not even talking about that “upper echelon of professionals”, won’t find anything here to sink his or her teeth into. There’s no challenge. The music uses only the flimsiest slice of the marimba’s timbral and expressive possibilities and is, as such, quite unable to bring out the best in either the performer or the instrument. My suggestion: talk to, and collaborate with a serious marimba player, and completely revise the part accordingly. If you were to dip your toes in the wondrous waters of contemporary marimba literature, you’ll quickly discover that idiomatic writing for the marimba, by composers who do understand the instrument, is something entirely different, on a whole different level both technically and musically, than what you’ve got happening in this piece.
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