Description

On being requested by Keijo Puumalainen, leader of the percussion section in the Finnish National Opera Orchestra, to compose a work for solo percussion player, I immediately warmed to the idea of writing something in which this brilliant, imaginative musician could make use of his battery of percussion instruments in a rich world of colours, timbres and rhythms.

The name Vision indicates that the work is about a visionary world of numerous opportunities and an invitation to embark on an adventure in a wealth of detail. People usually think of percussion instruments as nothing but banging and rumbling, but they also possess intimate hidden voices and expression.

Right at the beginning we hear the faint chinking of the little metal discs of a tambourine. We expect this folk-like, rhythmically stimulating instrument (familiar for hundreds and thousands of years to the primitive peoples of Asia, the Jews of the Old Testament, the janissary bands of Turkey and the gypsies of Spain) to engage in an ecstatic rhythmic orgy. But one of the little metal discs of the tambourine is struck with a thin metal rod and we hear something ethereally sonorous and poetic.

The gong, cymbals and tam-tam are hit in different places and with different implements, or a double bass bow is drawn across them. The result is an ambience in which metal and membrane percussion instruments interact and sketch in a profile. The marimba and vibraphone lead the way and various membranophones, wooden drums, bells and triangles contribute to the thematic development, the metamorphosis of sound. There are, all in all, 53 different instruments in the work. Finally it returns to the ethereal mood of the beginning. The work takes about 12 minutes to perform.

© Erik Bergman 2000

translation by © Susan Sinisalo

Instrumentation

perc

Category

Works for Solo Instrument

Opus no.

op. 144

Premiere

Keijo Puumalainen, Helsinki, October 7, 2000

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