Smith, J.B. In Ligh...
 
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Smith, J.B. In Light of Three

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 Greg
(@Greg)
Joined: 1 second ago
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Can anyone tell me anything about this piece? Thanx


   
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(@Junko)
Joined: 22 years ago
Posts: 4
 

Composed in 1988 and has two movements: Slow and Fast. Clarinet and Marimba(mov.1)/Vibe(mov.2) and tape. Mov.1 somewhat reminds me of Rousel and is expressive. Mov.2 makes stark contrast with it with modern Americanish style.

When it was played at the von Kuster Hall (The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada) back in 1994, it was extremely well received by the audience. The audience were so excited that the moment the piece was finished, many bravo and the variation came out, so I suppose the piece is appealing to the audience.

There is one caveat, however.

At the occasion, I did not play as instructed partly due to the lack of information. (It was based on a handwritten manuscript which even did not indicate Tape.)
Instead, it was played as Clarinet and one Marimba: Both percussion and the tape part was played on a Marimba. Since we had no access to the tape at the time, we needed to choose the tempo for Mov.2 by ourselves and the chosen tempo was quarter note=180 or so to make a enough contrast with the mov.1.

That's of course was a wrong tempo setting after getting hold of the tape, but definitely had a side effect of giving a lot of kick to the audience. Playing the Vibe part on the right hand and the tape part on the left at the blazing tempo certainly gave the audience some kind of "Circus" feeling. That might have been the cause of the applause.


   
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