thirteen ways

Composer Stephen Hartke knows what he is doing.

In preparation for the composition of his new sextet for 8bb, Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary plays, the composer had the Duv play and record sample sounds from 8bb’s percussion inventory. The Duv videotaped these, and I managed to turn up during a particularly interesting session, where our percussionist had instructed the Phot to test the melodic possibilities of a flexatone. Hartke’s intention was to use a trio of these curious instruments to lend a distinctive color to certain folk-like melodies, creating what the composer calls in the score a “flexatone gamelan”.

Below is a photo from May.  The Duv is in charge of the camera, while the Phot is trying to find a way to make the flexatone sustain a tonal melody. (The Mac offers moral support.) First, the Phot tries to use the instrument’s own “beater”:

Next, he uses a hard percussion mallet:

In the final score, of which we have received more than three quarters, Hartke writes for five flexatones, three to be played by piano (the previously mentioned “flexatone gamelan”) and one each played by flute and clarinet. Here is an example, from the score’s first page, of the writing for the “flexatone gamelan”. The top line shows the “approximate resultant pitches”; the middle line tells Lisa which of the three flexatones she should play with the rubber mallet in her right hand; the bottom line shows how much she is to bend the pitch “by pressing down on the [flexatone's] flange” (this bending is not needed in this excerpt):

Here is an excerpt that does use left-hand pitch bending:

And this is what the setup should look like (from a photo included in Hartke’s preface):

Another intriguing, non-traditional percussion setup dictated by the score is what Hartke calls a “timbre rack”. Very much of the composer’s own devising, this is a pitched keyboard instrument using a variety of percussion instruments in 8bb’s collection. As you can see from the representation below, it uses a different family of percussion instruments for each segment of the timbre rack’s range. Without the Duv’s patience and attention to detail while recording examples from 8bb’s large and varied percussion inventory, such a fascinating invention would not have come about. Here is Hartke’s representation of the the instrument in the score’s preface:

On the basis of score alone, Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary plays looks like a marvelously inventive work. What an ear for textures Hartke has: Subdued folk tunes are accompanied by flexatone gamelan; impatient, forceful timbre-rack gestures inspire hyperactive, fanfare-like passages in the winds, while the strings offer as accompaniment sputtering, violent “Bartok”-pizz gestures and sharp, impotent chorales of harmonics; virtuoso, etude-like, motoric piano figuration and sliding quadruple pizzicato stops in the cello accompany wild bass clarinet and seductive piccolo solos.

The title makes me think of Steve Mackey’s equally inventive mixed quintet Indigenous Instruments, which Mackey describes as “indigenous music from a culture that doesn’t exist”. Hartke’s new piece seems to share with that work the quest for an entirely unique sound-world.

I can’t wait to rehearse the piece, which should begin in early October, in preparation for the world premiere performance at our second home, University of Richmond (VA), on November 7.