Orchestra Bass Clarinet,
Bass Trombone, Bassoon,
Clarinet, Contrabass,
Contrabassoon, English
Horn, Flute 1, Flute 2,
Horn 1, Horn 2, Horn 3,
Horn 4, Oboe, Percussion,
Trombone 1, Trombone 2,
Trumpet 1, Trumpet 2,
Tuba, Viola, Violin 1,
Violin 2, Violoncello
SKU: PR.44641192L
For 5 Percussionists
and Orchestra.
Composed by Ellen Taaffe
Zwilich. Contemporary.
Large Score. With
Standard notation.
Composed 2003. 72 pages.
Duration 30 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#446-41192L. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.44641192L).
UPC:
680160610860. 11 x 14
inches.
One of my
greatest pleasures in
writing a concerto is
exploring the new world
that opens for me each
time I enter the
sometimes alien, but
always fascinating, world
of a solo instrument or
instruments. For me, the
challenge is to discover
the deepest nature of the
solo instrument (its
karma, if you will) and
to allow that essential
character to guide the
shape and form of the
work and the nature of
the interaction between
soloists and orchestra.
In recent years, many of
us have become more aware
of the musical world
outside the Western
tradition of musics that
follow different
procedures and spring
from other aesthetics.
And contemporary
percussionists have
opened many of these
worlds to us, as they
have ventured around the
globe, participating in
Brazilian Samba schools,
studying Gamelan and
African drumming with
local experts, collecting
instruments from Asia and
Africa and South America
and the South Pacific,
widening our horizons in
the process. I will never
forget our first meeting
in Toronto when Nexus
invited me into their
world of hundreds of
exciting percussion
instruments. The vast
array of instruments in
the collection of the
Nexus ensemble is truly
global in scope as well
as offering a thrilling
sound-universe. I was
inspired by the
incredible range of sound
and moved by the fact
that so many of these
instruments were musical
reflections of a
spiritual dimension.
After long consideration,
I decided that it would
not only be impossible,
but even undesirable for
this
Western-tradition-steeped
composer to attempt to
use these instruments in
a culturally authentic
way. My goal was an
existential kind of
authenticity: searching
instead for universal
ideas that would be true
to both myself and the
performers while
acknowledging the
traditional uses of the
instruments. Since many
percussion instruments
are associated with
various kinds of ritual,
I decided that I would
allow that concept to
shape my piece. Rituals
is in four movements,
each issuing from a
ritual associated with
percussion, but with the
orchestral interaction
providing an essential
element in the musical
form. I. Invocation
alludes to the traditions
of invoking the spirit of
the instruments, or the
gods, or the ancestors
before performing. II.
Ambulation moves from a
processional, through
march and dance to
fantasy based on all
three. III. Remembrances
alludes to traditions of
memorializing. IV.
Contests progresses from
friendly competition
games, contests to a
suggestion of a battle of
big band drummers, to
warlike exchanges. In the
2nd and 4th movements,
another percussion
tradition, improvisation,
is employed. Written into
these movements are a
number of seeds for
improvisation.
Indications in the score
call for the soloists to
improvise in three
different ways, marked A
for percussion alone;
marked B for percussion
with and in response to
the orchestra; and C
where the percussionists
are free to add and
embellish the written
parts. These
improvisations should
grow out of and embellish
previous motives and
gestures in the
movement.
