SKU: HL.14041798

ISBN 9788759818077. 12.5x16.5x1.13 inches.

Set of parts for Per Nørgård's En Lys Time / A Light Hour (2008-09) for a variable Percussion Ensemble (min. 10 players).

In A Light Hour everything - rhythms and motifs – is based on Nørgård´s special infinity series.

Score: WH30964

Programme note

A Light Hour is for ‘any number of percussion musicians’ (but a minimum of ten). The duration is about 60 minutes. The instrumentation is in principle open, as long as percussion is used within the three types specified in the score: skin, metal and wood. Each musicianuses two sound sources with two different sounds, one of which is bright (or light) and the other dark. Certain passages also include tuned percussion instruments – vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, gamelan, glockenspiel, steel drums, crotales and the like. 

The work integrates and combines a number of rhythms that Nørgård has used in percussion works since the 1970s, for example in Early Spring Dance (for choir and percussion), and percussion works like I Ching, Easy Beats, Whirls, Zigzag, Nemo Dynamo and Echo Zone I-II-III. 

Special “tone-feasts” (the composer’s term) – followed by a rest – are an recognizable 
melodic feature of the work.: the first minute end with a short tone-feast (and a rest), the first four minutes end with a tone-feast lasting a minute (and a rest), the first quarter of an hour ends with a tone-feast of four minutes (and a rest) – and the work ends with a tone-feast lasting quarter of an hour (and a rest, when the work is over ...). 

The first 15 minutes have a bright, light character throughout, and alternate between 
rhythms and melodic play. The following 15 minutes are more insistent and decidedly 
percussion-based, Afro-Cuban, whereas the third quarter of A Light Hour moves in the.

SKU: HL.14008433

ISBN 9780711968936.

This is effectively a work in three movements - Allegro, Andante cantabile and Presto - which Davies likens to 'three obstacle courses, bristling with technical difficulties'. However, as he goes on to say, 'young people are naturally gifted with extraordinary rhythmic skills which normally remain untapped'. Given the opportunity, older children have here the material for a highly arresting piece of music-making. Scoring also includes a small wood block, a small temple block and a small suspended cymbal. The xylophones are one each of the following: concert, soprano, alto and bass. The two glockenspiels are soprano and alto and the metallophones are bass and deep bass (a vibraphone may be used instead of the latter). These studies will provide a challenge to all percussionists, for whom there is a distinct shortage of suitable studies. Duration c. 5mins.