Alloy

Daniel Adams

General Info

Year: 1990
Duration: c. 7:25
Difficulty: Advanced
Publisher: Studio4
Cost: Score and Parts - $15.00   |   Score Only - $0.00

Instrumentation

Player 1: Glockenspiel
Player 2: Chimes
Player 3: Vibraphone

Program Notes

premiere: 17 October, 1990, Austin, Texas, University of Texas Percussion Ensemble, George Frock, director

Review

Alloy is a percussion trio, requiring performers at the college level, written for a most unusual instrumentation- giockenspiel, chimes, and vibraphone. By utilizing a variety of implements, including mallets of brass is used on both bells and chimes), plastic, hard rubber, hard and soft yarn, and chime hammers and a bow, this piece attempts to produce a variety of interesting metallic sonorities and expand the vocabulary of sounds normally produced on the three metallophones used. Cohesiveness in this work is largely achieved through the use of repetitious melodic patterns, which display a predilection for intervals of the major and minor second and the augmented fourth, and inversions of same, presented in both linear contrapuntal fashion and chordally. Movement and contrast are effected through mampulations of surface rhythms and texture. To build tension and generate excitement, Adams increases rhythmic movement as beat subdivisions accelerate from triplet to quadruplet sixteenths, and quadruplets change to quintuplet and sextuplet sixteenth note subdivisions. The climax of the work is a passage in which the glockenspiel has repetitous melodic patterns of quintuplet sixteenths, the chimes have quadruplet sixeenths, and the vibe part is notated in sextuplet sixteenth notes, creating the effect of numerous tolling bells Adams, in this and previous works, has revealed himself a capable composer whose writing reflects a familiarity with percussion instruments. Here, he has chosen to fuse the characteristic timbres of bells, chimes and vibes into an interesting amalgam, providing audiences the opportunity to explore an exciting new palette of colors. - John R. Rausch, April 1993

Recent Performances

To submit a performance please join the TEK Percussion Database

Works for Percussion by this Composer

Solo

Reverberations - Timpani
Three Movements for Unaccompanied Marimba - Marimba
Variation sans theme - Snare Drum

Solo with Piano

Collage - Multiple Percussion; Piano

Solo with Ensemble

Camaraderie - Timpani; Percussion Septet
Isorhythmic Concerto - Multiple Percussion; Wind Ensemble
Protagonist - Tom-tom; Percussion Trio
Tamboo Bamboo - Steel Drum; Percussion Orchestra

Mallet Duo

Elusive Rounds - Glockenspiel Duo
Road Traversed and Reversed - Marimba Duo

Percussion Duo

Andalusian Haiku
Times Two

Percussion Trio

Alloy
Lignumvitae

Mallet Quartet

Stratum - Marimba Quartet

Percussion Quartet

Echogenesis

Percussion Sextet

Talea - Percussion Sextet

Percussion Septet

Ambience (Adams)

Percussion Octet

Dissolve

Large Percussion Ensemble

Two Antiphonal Portraits - Percussion Ensemble (12)

With Other Instruments

Between - Marimba; Flute
Concerto for Euphonium and Percussion Quintet - Percussion Quintet; Euphonium
Equipoise - Multiple Percussion; Saxophone
Focus - Vibraphone; Bassoon
Khromas Diabolus - Percussion Quintet; Trombone
Shadow on Mist - Multiple Percussion; Flute
Shadow on Mist (Ensemble) - Percussion Quintet; Flute
Syzygy - Marimba; Violin
Three Subtropical Vistas - Marimba, Vibraphone, Voice
Twilight Remembered - Multiple Percussion; Flute
Windward Passage - Marimba, Vibraphone, String Quartet

Books

Five Elementary Etudes - Multiple Percussion
Performance Studies for Two, Volume 1 - Snare Drum