Chamber Music Vibraphone,
soprano Saxophone
SKU:
PR.11441378S
Duo
for Saxophones and
Percussion. Composed
by Shulamit Ran. Spiral.
Contemporary. Full score.
With Standard notation.
Composed 2007. 12 pages.
Theodore Presser Company
#114-41378S. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.11441378S).
UPC:
680160585939. 11 x 14
inches.
Commissione
d by Network for New
Music, who premiered the
work in April 2008, with
support from Philadelphia
Music Project, an
Artistic Initiative of
The Pew Charitable
Trusts, administered by
the University of the
Arts.
“Song and
Dance†began its
life as a nascent melody
in the late eighties,
employing a similar
motivic cell as did three
of my works written over
a period of several years
— East Wind,
String Quartet No. 2
(Vistas), and Mirage.Â
At the ore of these three
works is the simplest of
melodic kernels —
a note encircled by its
two neighboring tones
(and more specifically, a
half step above and whole
step below). At the
time, I envisioned
writing a work for voice,
oboe, and marimba, and
had just begun it, only
to drop it in favor of
more pressing
compositional
assignments. Almost
twenty years later, the
vocal fragment finally
evolved into the
“song†of
this work, played here by
the soprano
saxophone. But it
seems that the song, all
these years, had been
waiting for its
counterpart, a dance.Â
Singing and dancing are
two of humankind’s
most basic and essential
impulses, transcending
time and place, reaching
back to the earliest
civilizations. The
resulting composition,
“Song and
Danceâ€, moves back
and forth between the
two, delineating its
various parts further
with the use of both
soprano and alto
saxophones, partnered by
mallet percussion
instruments —
mostly vibraphone and
marimba, with bells added
at the very end of the
work. The song
portions return to the
same melody, varied and
evolved over time, as new
materials are introduced
in the dance sections,
affecting the
presentation of the
recurring song
music. My thanks to
the Network for New Music
for commissioning this
work and allowing me the
freedom to choose its
format and
instrumentation.—S
hulamit Ran.