TUMBLERS for violin, marimba & computer (1989/90)
	BUY score & parts
	Percussion area			When I started to work on this composition all I had as 'raw material' was the brief and simple rhythmic phrase which opens the piece. The phrase had been 'playing' in my head for some time but I had no conscious compositional strategy planned for it. As I write this programme notes I realize that in Tumblers I treated and developed my raw material through rhythmic processes that are more characteristic of the African, Latinamerican or Oriental traditions than of the serious music of Europe. The initial rhythmic phrase is present throughout the piece in different forms, edited, repeated, shifted and multiplied like a cell of a growing structure. It is in this process that the apparent pulse and beat of the music becomes ambiguous, each new repetition of the rhythm brings uncertainty, rather than the relief of the known. Tumbler: one who tumbles, an acrobat, says the dictionary. The players too, like tumblers, unfold the shifting rhythms in the vertigo of a pulse which changes with every step. Tumblers was commissioned by Marimolin and was produced at the composer's private studio A.V.
	CD-MP3 STORE BUY & HIRE SCORES Biography Catalogue of works index of works Programme notes Photographs Reviews & articles Audio excerpts Discography HOME email