Product Description

Ten Timpani Solos; Score and CD of Electronic Portions;

Patrick Hardish: Sonorities VIII

Sonorities VIII for four timpani was composed for and dedicated to Peter Jarvis. It is part of a series of works for solo instruments called "Sonorities" where my main objectives are to showcase the technical ability of the performer using a modern musical vocabulary particularly as regards to timbre and extended techniques. In this piece this is done by the use of four different mallets (medium or standard, hard, soft, and drum sticks), different striking positions of the drum heads, rim shots, using the butt end of the mallets, glissandi and harmonics. - Patrick Hardish

Peter Jarvis: Pitched Drums

I composed Pitched Drums in 1999, the piece is respectfully dedicated to the exceptional timpanist Edmund Fay. Pitched Drums has been recorded by April McCloskey. - Peter Jarvis

Arthur V. Kreiger: Occasional Demons

Occasional Demons is a musical composition for solo percussionist and electronic sounds. The sometimes fast-paced rhythms driving this piece present the instrumentalist with an overtly physical performance experience. The battery contains only four timpani. The lowest drum tuned to its deepest sound infuses the opening volley with an overwhelming ferocity. Dead center strokes and ringing midway strokes play off the drumhead to contrast rapidly articulated gestures with explosions demanding longer decay time. Electronic sounds soon enter and add depth and diversity to the aural landscape. A wide variety of sampled noises undergoing multiple layers of digital transformation form the basic content of the stereo sound tracks. Synchronized passages of drum strokes and electronic attacks alter the perception of the timpani’s familiar color. A crude, terrifying electronic scream punctuates the piece at different junctures. Fashioned on an early model ARP Synthesizer, the scream returns at the close of the composition presenting the soloist with a final challenge. The electronic portion of Occasional Demons was realized at the Cummings Electronic and Digital Sound Studio of Connecticut College where it was completed in 2005. The composition is happily dedicated to Peter Jarvis and is part of his ‘timpani project’ in association with Calabrese Brothers Music, LLC. - Arthur V. Kreiger

Eugene Lee: The Singing Drums

The Singing Drums for Four Timpani (one player) in two movements was completed in early March of 2005 and is dedicated to Peter Jarvis. This composition for timpani solo explores the production of melody, and pitch fluctuation in the melody by using the pedal of the instrument. It explores the various percussive timbre qualities of the timpani including playing on the rim and rim shot as the contrapuntal rhythmic counterpart to the melody. This composition hopes to reveal the remarkable potential of the timpani as a colorful solo instrument. - Eugene Lee

Gilberto Andres Martinez Ojeda: Artificial Climates for Timpani and Electronics

According to philosopher Jean Baudrillard, the concept of artificial is what’s left after some natural idea or concept is manipulated by a secondary unnatural source. The result is the effect of the secondary source and its reminder after the decay of its existence. In this work, the natural and acoustic sounds of the timpani are manipulated by digital means. The work’s proposal is to balance acoustic means with digital means. We have a reminder of new timbers and extended techniques for the performance of the piece; this new approach becomes the artificial issue of the work. The work has three parts. The first part is the game between the electronic sounds and the perception of its internal rhythmic ideas, translated into the language of percussion; in this case with the use of the timpani because of its wide range of possibilities and timbres. The second part is the ritual, determining a rhythmic cell. This cell is based on Cumbia music from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, because of all the heritage of African, Western, and “Indigena’s” music it has. The last part is an affirmation and balance of the first two parts. The performer may alter the groove of the last two parts by improvising on top of their rhythmic cells. Artificial Climates for Timpani and Electronics was commissioned by Calabrese Brothers Music, LLC and is dedicated to Peter Jarvis. - Gilberto Andrés Martinez Ojeda

Ron Mazurek: Sotto Voce

Sotto Voce was written and dedicated to my dear friend Peter Jarvis. The term sotto voce in this work signifies “in a whisper or undertone”. The disconnected speech and whisperings of the electronic sound as well as the spoken part of the performer are at times not clear in meaning and give the impression of something mysterious. The voice and sonorities of the timpanist are utilized as a kind of language for feeling, texture and color in which there is no text. - Ron Mazurek

Riccardo Santoboni: Vertici (for timpani and synthesized sounds)

Two main pitches and their neighbors are the material for this work. Synthetic and acoustic sounds are conceived as a whole, one or the other sound families alternately coming to the surface. First and third timpani, tuned with the same pitch, contribute to acoustical sound localization, and because the latter is for an upper pitch range (G3 US standard), the membrane is less strengthened with different spectral responses. Theatrical gesture is also thought for this work, based on the idea of vertexes; triangular patterns are in fact the main compositional parameters for Vertici, from musical shape to both synthetic and acoustical elements. The work is dedicated to Peter Jarvis. - Riccardo Santoboni November 28, 2005

David Saperstein: Timpani Solo II

Timpani Solo II was commissioned by Calabrese Brothers Music, LLC and is dedicated to Peter Jarvis, in tribute to Mr. Jarvis’ considerable virtuosity. Composed in January of 2006, the work is characterized by contrasts in dynamics, tempo, and rhythm. Four pitches – G-flat, C, D and F – are chosen at the beginning and this tuning is maintained throughout the piece. The work is a free-form fantasy. There are six sections, each demarcated by a change in tempo. The first of these sections is slow and introductory, and the music grows out of three crescendos, stating the first three of the four pitches. The second section is fast-paced, with a wide variety of rhythms using different subdivisions of the beat. The third section is again slow and requires the player to use snare sticks. The use of timpani mallets returns in the fourth section, which is moderately fast-paced, and contains interchanging 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 meters. The fifth section returns to the tempo of the opening; and the final section begins at a moderately fast pace, introducing a two-measure ostinato figure, and concludes with an accelerando to a faster pace. - David Saperstein

Justinian Tamusuza: Engoma Enteera

Engoma Enteera was commissioned by Calabrese Brothers Music and is dedicated to Peter Jarvis. In my ethnic music terminology Engoma Enteera means drum music without dancing and singing. The work is based on two drum styles of my ethnic music:

(a) The Baakisimba drum rhythm (measures 1-65, 77-153, and 168-180); which accompanies the Baakisimba Dance. The dance is both for the Kabaka (king of Buganda) and the Bakopi (commoners of Buganda). The two are characterized by the compound duple meter; and the difference is in both the choreographic formations and tempi. I did not make such distinctions in this work because there is neither dancing nor singing. (b) The Ebiggu drum rhythm (measures 66-76 and 154-167) mainly accompanies traditional religious ceremonies; and is usually in simple duple meter. The music is used by the traditional medicine people to get possessed after which they invoke emizimu (spirits of the ancestors) or lubaale (traditional gods) to come and solve the problems in society.

I employed a pentatonic scale, which is close to the equidistant pentatonic scale of my ethnic music; and I employed two reference tones: F (measures 1-65, 148-180), and C (measures 66-147). Though the music has no functional tonality, I used the reference tones for tonal variety. The staff notation, and use of dynamics and their shades is the influence I got from my training in western music. Measures 144-147 is characteristic of polymetricism common in my ethnic music. The metric speed in the four sections should be the same. Although there must not be tempo changes throughout the performance, a listener should be able to hear the metric changes. This is another characteristic of my ethnic music depicted in this work. - Justinian Tamusuza August 19, 2008 

Timpani Solo For Solo Timpani, Michael Sperone