Intermediate Masterworks for Marimba (review)

As a relative newcomer to the concert hall, the marimba lacks the expansive repertoire of other instruments that have flourished over centuries. The standard repertoire for the marimba appears comparatively small, often augmented by transcriptions. Throughout its brief history as a concert instrument, the marimba benefitted significantly from the contributions of virtuoso female performers who championed the creation of new repertoire for the instrument. First, Vida Chenoweth with Robert Kurka’s Concerto for Marimba and Paul Creston’s Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra, then Keiko Abe through her own compositions and numerous works by Japanese composers, all advanced the repertoire of the marimba, many of the works serving as staples for the instrument. More recently, Nancy Zeltsman has sought to expand the repertoire, commissioning compositions for the marimba.

Intermediate Masterworks for Marimba represents yet another contribution to the repertoire from Zeltsman. The collection stems from a commissioning project undertaken by her under the auspices of the summer seminar for student marimbists, the Zeltsman Marimba Festival. The goal of the commissioning project, as stated in the liner notes, was “to fill the void that existed in the concert marimba repertoire by bridging the gap between idiomatic etudes and virtuosic ‘warhorses.’” To fill this void in the marimba repertoire, Zeltsman commissioned intermediate-level pieces from sixteen established composers. Eight other pieces selected from entries in the Zeltsman Marimba Festival composition competition completes this collection. Joining Zeltsman in performing these twenty-four new works are seven excellent marimbists: Ivana Bilic, Thomas Burritt, Jean Geoffroy, Jack Van Geem, Beverley Johnston, William Moersch, and Gordon Stout.

Given the brief duration of the pieces—the longest lasting 6′44″—one gets only the smallest hint of any composer’s musical style or language. The listener gets a slightly better sense of the performers, but given that eight different marimbists participate in the recording, what really emerges from the collection is the breadth of sounds and approaches to the instrument. Of the individual timbral possibilities represented on this recording, those of Nancy Zeltsman and Jean Geoffroy seem to sit at opposing poles. Zeltsman’s sound on Lyle Mays’s Mindwalk appears warm and resonant, though occasionally diffuse, while Geoffroy’s sound on Kaori Okatani’s Three Colors portrays a much more pointed attack that can, at times, come off somewhat harsh. These varieties of sounds qualities illuminate both the differences in outlook of the different composers as well as the spectrum of approaches to the marimba taken by the performers. One could imagine very different performances if Zeltsman and Geoffroy swapped repertoire.

The disparate approaches of Zeltsman and Geoffroy expose the percussive and melodic qualities of the instrument. William Moersch leverages this continuum expressively in his performance of Steven Stucky’s Dust Devil. At times the legato articulation combines with the natural resonance of the marimba to obscure harmonic changes and blur the distinction between tremolos and single notes, while more clearly articulating other sections. Textures coalesce then evanesce, rarely hanging around very long. Mindwalk, by Lyle Mays, suits Zeltsman’s timbral proclivities quite well. At the beginning of the piece, the resonance of the low-G drone creates a haze, out of which small melodic fragments emerge. In the middle section the left and right hands come together, going through various sequential patterns and exploring other harmonic territories before coming back to the opening...