Claire Edwardes
Percussion 
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CLAIRE EDWARDES
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REPERTOIRE Claire is active as chamber and orchestral soloist, and features in various small ensembles, particularly the duos that she has created with some of the finest contemporary music specialists performing today. REPERTOIRE LISTS
PROGRAM NOTES
(in alphabetical order)
The title of this work stems
from the Nahuatl (ancient Aztec) word literally meaning “water that burns". The
maracas material throughout Temazcal is drawn from traditional rhythmic patterns
found in most Latin-American music, namely those from the Caribbean region,
southeastern Mexico, Cuba, Central America and the flatlands of Colombia and
Venezuela. In these types of music in general, the maracas are used in a purely
accompanimental manner as part of small instrumental ensembles. The only
exception is, perhaps, that of the Venezuelan flatlands, where the role of the
maracas surpasses that of mere cadence and accent punctuation to become a
solo instrument in its own right. It was from this instance that I imagined a
piece where the player would have to master short patterns and combine them with
great virtuosity to construct larger and complex rhythmic structures which could
then be juxtaposed, superimposed and set against similar passages on tape, thus
creating a dense polyrhythmic web. This would eventually disintegrate clearing
the way for a traditional accompanimental style of playing in a sound world
reminiscent of the maracas' more usual environment. Georges Aperghis, Le Corps Á Corps (1982) Georges Aperghis' Le Corps Á Corps (literally 'body to body' or also 'neck and neck') takes a race car track as its setting. The performer plays many different roles: the driver, the sports commentators, the audience, and even the car itself. Aperghis develops the material in an almost cinematic fashion, splicing the musical gestures and spoken text into smaller and smaller pieces and placing them closer and closer together as the drama unfolds and intensifies; these bit of material finally crash into one another as the piece hurtles towards its final bars. The music is periodically interrupted by long periods of silence which freeze frame the action and prolong the tension of a single moment. Scored for zarb (an small hand held Arabic drum) and spoken voice with numerous instructions for the performer's physical movements, this, like many of Aperghis' works, treads the thin line between music and theater. by Samuel Solomon
Text (translation from
French by Matthew Gold): Oscar Bettison, Krank 13’ (2004) “When I first stared thinking about Krank, I imagined a little music box made up of three metal keyboards. Like a music box, Krank needs to be wound up in order to play but Krank is a music box with a difference. Krank is a music box which tries to fight against it mechanical constitution, it wants to sing and be free of its constraints like a kind of musical Pinocchio. Three times it tries increasingly hard to break free. Three times it tries and – well, that would be telling….” Gerard Brophy, Coil (1996) Claire has performed Gerard Brophy’s punchy Vibraphone work Coil all over the world. It was written in 1996 and is very typical of Brophy’s compositional style during this period. He uses repeated fragments, constantly altering them slightly and the rhythmic vitality and jazzy style of this work is very well suited to the vibraphone. John Cage, Variations III for one or any number of people performing any actions. The
part includes 1 transparent sheet and 42 small sheets. The performers must use
chance operations to “make” their score. Drew Crawford, Quadrivium I (1998) This composition by Australian composer Drew Crawford was written in 1998 for the opening of a glass exhibition. It is minimalistic in style and compliments the usual combination of vibraphone and marimba with cymbals, glockenspiel and crotales to great effect. Laurence Crane, Solo for Claire Edwardes (2005) Laurence Crane’s work is very powerful in its simplicity. It combines pre recorded percussion sounds with the live Vibraphone, bass drum and some pitched german cowbells – almglocken. Cliff Crego (1950), The Circle in the Square/The Magic Box (1998-2001) The magic
box: two streams of complementary metrical movement, one in 5, the
other in 3. The first of the set.
Joe Cutler,
Koroviev’s Tricks
(percussion and piano)
(2001)
9' The piece referes to the particular scene in which this motley ensemble manage (by dubious means) to acquire the Moscow State Theatre for an evening of sorcery with hilarious and devastating results. Ross Edwards, More Marimba Dances (2004)
In 1982 I
composed Marimba Dances, a set of three marimba solos that have been performed
and recorded widely. They're light-hearted pieces which are deceptively
difficult to perform, as percussion students throughout the world will be
aware. Twenty years later Claire Edwardes asked me to compose some more music
for marimba and I responded with three pieces in the style of the earlier
ones. I love the marimba - it's one of my favourite instruments. Andrew Ford (1957), War and Peace (violin and percussion) (2004) 1. March 2. No Man's Land 3. The Armed Man The three movements of War and Peace are quite distinct. 'March', for violin and darabouka (or djembe, or some other portable drum) contains hardly any bars of two or four beats and so is technically impossible to march to. There should be more marches like this. 'No Man's Land' is an attempt at peaceful music for violin and metal percussion. 'The Armed Man' (which exists also as a percussion solo) is music of virtuoso belligerence and quotes a well known national anthem. This piece was composed for Antipoduo in the second half of 2004. By Andrew Ford Andrew Ford (1957),The Crantock Gulls (percussion duo) (2004) In 2003, with my permission, Daryl Pratt and Alison Eddington of Match Percussion made a duo version of my solo drumming piece, Composition in Blue, Grey and Pink (1993), and played it on an Australian tour. Later the same year, Kevin Man and Kerryn Joyce of Karak Percussion played their own duo version of the same piece. I never heard either arrangement, but I can take a hint. I began this piece one rainy day in July 2004 in the tiny coastal village of Crantock in Cornwall, where the seagulls are unusually vociferous and squawk in polymetres. I was there on holiday with my parents who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and the piece is dedicated to them Maria Grenfell, Ceol Na Fidhle (violin and percussion) (1999)
Ceol na Fidhle
(pronounced ‘kee-OL na fiddle’), for violin and percussion,
is based on
Celtic bagpipe and fiddle tunes. The Gaelic title means "tunes
for highland
fiddle." Some of the tunes are obvious while others are almost
hidden.
Prologue starts with a bang, and is followed by Hornpipe where a
familiar tune
dances and then scurries away beneath a disguise of
accompanying
notes and rhythmic displacement. The Boatman slows the pace
and melodic
decoration suggests the sound of bagpipes playing this rather
wistful song.
Finally, Reel returns to the highly-charged drive of the
Prologue with a
frantic and virtuosic ending. Ceol na Fidhle was written in
1999 for
Tasmanian musicians Rachel Bremner and Tom O’Kelly. The
well-known Japanese composer, Hosokawa, wrote this marimba solo in 2004 and
tonight is the Dutch premiere of the piece. Maki Ishii, Fourteen Percussions op.119 (2000) There is a similarity between the title of “Thirteen Drums” my humble work composed for percussion solo some 15 years ago, and of this “Fourteen Percussions”. Moreover the numbers in the former (13) and the latter (7x2=14) form the structural nucleus of both pieces. In this way, though the concepts are similar, the conspicuous differences between the compositions lie in their tones. By contrast to Thirteen Drums, Fourteen Percussions contains tonal mutations of 14 different percussion instruments ranging from high pitched to low pitched ones and those variations are of a value structurally equal to the transformation in rhythm. In Fourteen Percussions the tones change through a playing style of just striking and hitting fourteen different percussion instruments. They move from a simple rhythm to a complicated one and the method of rendition goes from a fundamental style of percussion playing to a complicated contemporary one. By Maki Ishii Dominik Karski, Beginnings to no End (marimba solo) (1999) 10' Essentially the work explores the relationship between continuity and change. Its form consists of seven fragments called “beginnings”, where the common focus is placed on the idea of opening out, often presented through abrupt and eruptive gestures. The writing is predominantly focused on the lower register of the marimba, thus the tension that the fragmented continuity creates is reinforced by the ambiguously blurred sonority of the resonators, cut through by the attacks of the mallets.
Yannis
Kyriakides, Lab Fly Dreams (solo percussion version) John Lely, Desk Bells (percussion duo) (2006) Desk Bells is for a set of tuned and coloured desk bells. It was premiered in May 2006 at Goldsmiths College however this duo version was made for Duo Vertigo. John Lely is a composer who was born in Norfolk UK in 1976. Hobbies include ornithology and domino-toppling. Roderik de Man (1941), A Case History (2002) A Case History was written for Niels Meliefste in 2002. It was premiered by Niels in the 2002 Suite Muziekweek, the Ijsbreker, Amsterdam. It uses a single “suitcase”, vocalising and limited implements to produce unexpected sounds and effects. Born in Bandung, Indonesia in 1941, Roderik de Man studied percussion with Frans van der Kraan and music theory at the Royal Conservatory, The Hague. At the same time he partook in the composition class of Kees van Baaren and worked in the electronic studio of Dick Raaymakers. In 1991 he won the second prize at the Festival of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges for his harpsichord and tape piece “Chordis Canam”. Ned McGowan, Urban Turban (2002) Urban Turban is for two marimbas and was written for Duo Vertigo. Other versions exist for small ensemble, saxophone and percussion duo as well as piano, flute and clarinet. Some of Urban Turban¹s influences are music from the Balkans and India, jazz, John Cage, Loos, Rudiger Meyer, Musicquantics, serialism and the note E. Seung-Ah Oh, Circle (2003)
The word
circle emerged when the piece was almost finished. The title of the piece
applies to the general structure, where later episodes keep on returning to a
basic idea stated at the beginning. However, upon each return, it will have
developed somehow: mainly in timbre and rhythm. One of the most important issues
of Circle was to realize a rich timbre within a limited setup. This
limitation resulted for example in two ways of using the Thai Gong. The gongs
are initially played on the table with maximum muting. As the piece proceeds,
selected gongs are gradually hung up for purposes of resonance in the last
episode. The pitch collection of the gongs at the beginning differs extremely
from the suspended gongs playing at the end: chromatic vs. pentatonic. The
direction of the episode circles but eventually it evolves to a quite unexpected
section at the end. Tim Parkinson (1973), Two Cardboard Boxes (2003) Tim Parkinson was born in 1973. He studied composition at Oxford with Robert Sherlaw Johnson and then with Kevin Volans in Dublin. He has written for the Ensemble Bash, Tubalate, and duo Contour, and has received performances in London, Cologne, Bonn, and Grahamstown, South Africa. "Two cardboard boxes" was written in 2003 for James Saunders and me to play in a tour involving no instruments. Each player has eleven pages. Some are similar and some are different. The structure is variable. Simultaneous and co-existent independence. Clapping Music (1972) by Steve Reich (1936) Steve Reich has been recognized internationally as one of the world’s foremost living composers and the father of minimal music. He was born and raised in New York and then California and studied at Juilliard School of Music and later with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio. His works often feature percussion as an integral element – these include “Drumming” and “Music for 18 Musicians”. In 1972 Reich composed Clapping Music to create a piece of music that would need no instruments beyond the human body. One part remains fixed, repeating the pattern throughout, while the second moves abruptly, after a number of repeats, from unison to one beat ahead, and so on, until it is back in unison with the first To the Earth by Frederic Rzweski Written in 1985, Frederic Rzewski’s classic, To the Earth is for four pitched flower-pots. The percussionist strikes the flower-pots whilst reciting text from a pseudo-homeric hymn written in about the 7th century BC. The piece conveys the fragile nature of the Earth through the use of flower-pots (also made from ‘earth’) and the text mirrors the sense of the precarious human condition on this earth, which is more poignant now than ever. Born in the USA in1938, Rzweski attended Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt. In 1960, studied in Italy with Luigi Dallapiccola and commenced a career as a performer of new piano music, often with an improvisatory element. In 1977 Rzewski became Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium. Most of Rzewski's works are overtly political and feature improvisational elements. Notes onTo the Earth: by the composer To the Earth was written in 1985 at the request of the percussionist Jan Williams. Williams asked for a piece using small percussion instruments that could be easily transported. I decided to use four flower-pots. Not only do they have a beautiful sound, but they don't have to be carried around: In every place where one plays the piece, they can be bought for a total cost of about one dollar. The text, which is recited by the percussionist, is that of the pseudo-Homeric hymn "To the Earth Mother of AH", written probably in the seventh century before the Christian era. This simple, poem in nineteen lines of dactylic hexameter is a prayer to Ge, or Gaia, goddess of Earth. The music which accompanies it is a sequence of 35 (= 5x 7) seventeen-second periods. Four lines of text occur for every five periods of music. The Earth ~ whatever it is — is a myth, both ancient and modern. For Heraclitus, it is a ball in the hands of a child. For the Kabbalists, it is the stuff of creation, an act so dangerous that it must never be undertaken alone. For Columbus, it is an egg. For us today as well, it appears increasingly as something fragile. Because of its humanly altered metabolism, it is rapidly becoming a symbol of the precarious human condition. In this piece the flower-pots are intended to convey this sense of frangibility. The writing of this piece was triggered by reading an article on some newly-discovered properties of clay, the substance of which pots, and golems, are made. Among these properties are its capacity to store energy for long periods of time and its complex molecular structure. It can function as a catalyzing template for the formation of large organic molecules, such as those of amino acids, the building-blocks of protein. This idea of clay as something half-alive, a kind of transitional medium between organic and inorganic materials, led me to take a look at flower-pots. I found, in fact, that some pots arc "alive" while others arc "dead": Some emit a disappointing "thunk" when you lap them, while others seem to burst into resonant song at the slightest touch. My original design for the treatment of this text involved chorus, seven orchestras of different ethnic origin, and electronics (including the use of transducers for the simulation of seismic events). I am rather glad I dropped this project in favor of a simpler form. FR Karlheinz Stockhausen – Tierkreis (selected movements) (version for percussion, piano, clarinets - world premiere) -12’ (1970)
Stockhausen initially wrote these 12 exquisite little melodies of the zodiac for
music boxes. Notated as a melody with accompaniment, the tunes can be arranged
for any combination of instruments and the speed, dynamics and style are all
decided by the performers in advance. Slow Hand Clap was written in 2006 for Duo Vertigo. The two percussionists choose their own instruments. The only constraint is that each player must have one instrument that is the same, a second that is similar and a third that is different. Matthew Shlomowitz (b.1975) lectures at the Foundation for International Education and co-directs both the Anglo/Belgian ensemble Plus Minus, and Rational Rec, a monthly inter-arts event at the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. Rhythm Song by Paul Smadbeck (1984) Also written in 1984, Paul Smadbeck’s classic Rhythm Song is similar to the vibraphone solo by Mark Pollard in that it is in the minimal style of the American composers of the 20th Century. The energy created by repeated patterns on marimba is quite unique. Finger Funk (2003) by Michael Smetanin Fingers only !!! The idea of one five octave marimba played by two performers with no mallets at all was the basic starting point for this work. The investigation of possibilities that followed yielded more ideas and methods of performance than were eventually used in the composition with only some of the resultant techniques “allowed” into the piece. Audibility of the material was of major concern and gave rise to some techniques that create the vast dynamic range. The music you hear now is what became as a result of such considerations coupled with the need for colouristic variation. Finger Funk was commissioned by percussionists Daryl Pratt and Alison Eddington in 2003 and was composed and premiered in the same year. Wayne Siegel (1953) – 42nd Street Rondo Wayne Seigel's 42nd Street Rondo is a five minute duet in which each performer has a matching set of mixed, untuned percussion instruments. The composer writes: "the title refers to the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway in Manhattan, where street musicians often perform" and the composition demonstrates this rhythmic street vitality. #Celestial Dance (2000) by Jane Stanley (1976) This short duo for marimba and congas written by the young Australian composer Jane Stanley, was the first piece ever written for Duo Vertigo. They have performed it regularly since forming the group in 2001.
Double Smooth
Disaster by Edward Top And indeed, there is no mistaking the sarcasm in the women¹s voices, just as there is no choice but for the percussionists and the only man on the soundtrack to accept their domination. TOCCATA III (2001) by Samuel Vriezen "The sky was filled with winged men. Franklin stood among the mirrors, as the aircraft multiplied in the air and crowded the sky with endless armadas. Ursula was coming for him, she and her sisters walking across the desert from the gates of the solar city. [...] Happy now to be free of time, he embraced the great fugue. All the light in the universe had come here to greet him, an immense congregation of particles.' - from: J. G. Ballard, 'News from the Sun' Two Glockenspiels play similar lines in different tempi and cause the material to echo back and forth between the two of them. Each section uses a different selection of materials, interlocking them in generally simple, repetitive ways and causing diverse interferences (harmonic and contrapuntal relations) between the two voices. The result is a dense web of illusionary voice leadings, types of motion and harmonic shadings. The sequences are interrupted by pauses and crumbs of solo writing.
Teguala (1998
rev as duo version 2001) by Juan Felipe Waller Teguala is a duo for ceramic tiles and electronics. Writing for percussion is always like a knife with two sharp edges: on one hand you have the constraint of a plain hit to make a surface resonate, most often with a rather quick decay of sound. On the other, you have a whole pallete of sticks and tools from which to choose to make this primal stroke happen. Writing for tiles was no exception. A predictably square object usually stepped on, just seemed like another case of a hit and run situation. Nevertheless, from the very beginning, the richness of the sound qualities obtainable was very startling. An instant association to electronic sounds was almost too obvious and unavoidable, to the extent of even considering not using electronics for the piece at all. The idea to write for tiles began from a very small setup, towards a huge variety of different sizes and materials and then back to a compact set of around 120 tiles played by four percussion players. The whole process resulted as a thorough exploration of the sound possibilities of any kind of square ceramic with all its different components. Some tiles come from Mexico where there is an old tradition in hand made ceramics, which are often cooked in lower temperatures than the sort we use as floor tiles, heated heavily to obtain its resistant solidity. All of these factors would play a role in the sound quality. An important idea behind the piece was to be able to build up a set of tiles which would be affordable for anybody, especially coming from a country where not everyone has the economical possibilities to buy an expensive instrument such as a marimba. Gathering the tiles has no costs, making this fact stand out, and clashing later on with the contradiction of using electronics and amplification. The rhythms, textures, and surreal atmospheres that appear in the piece are inspired by both rural and urban derivation. Though the original version is for percussion quartet, this duo version was specially arranged for Duo Vertigo, with whom I have worked closely to obtain a ‘bullet-proof ‘ compact version. This version has proven to bring out the pieces’ meticulous rhythmical intensity to another level, thanks to their interpretation. Benedict Weisser – Study for Four Hands (Piano Drumming) (2004) The piece is in memory of Charles Ives, who died almost exactly fifty years ago (on the 19th of May 1954). The piece’s subtitle is Piano-Drumming because it is built of a technical device invented by Ives-- what he called “piano-drum chords.” These are tone-clusters hammered out to approximate the rhythms of the marching bands he heard in his post-American Civil War childhood. Ives actually used only a few piano-drum chords, because a certain limited number of chords had what he considered to be the right harmonic qualities. That I find really interesting. My piece takes off from this notion—it is a half-piano (four-hands), half-percussion piece (with the marimba and vibes providing a link between the two) using the idea of “colored clusters.” Or, out of clusters come melodic shapes, harmonic change, long-breathed lines, formal direction (of some sort). Like getting water out of a rock. Each time I played through it I made mistakes which led to more material—in this manner the rhythmic structure intuited itself from the harmony (speaking of rhythmic structure, metric modulation is used in getting from one place to another without your realizing it). In the piece there is also appropriation and development of an Ives quote (after all, what would anything involving Ives be without quotes?), namely the piano-drum chord from his song General William Booth Enters Into Heaven. Iannis Xenakis– Rebonds A+B (percussion solo) 13’ (1987-89) Composed for the relatively simple setting of bongos, congas, tom toms and 2 bass drums (with some woodblocks added in “B”), Rebonds has become probably the most important composition for percussion solo to date. It seems to have everything – rhythmic vigour, challenging form, musical lines and passionate “blows” General Note: Koppel: Toccata, Druckman: Reflections, Klatzow: Ambient Resonance, Smetanin: Finger Funk, Takemitsu: Cross Hatch
Duo Vertigo
will present a unique program featuring the famous mellow tones of the five
octave marimba – the biggest marimba in existence today.
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