Perusal copy notforperformance
Soliloquy
for marimba
Shattered Arcana Press
performance notes
Equipment:
-Marimba (5 octave)
-Whistle (non-pitched; worn around neck)
Whistle techniques
soffio – [empty square notehead] – blow air through the whistle, resulting in an airy sound
ex.
program note
In approaching Soliloquy, I was drawn to the rhetoric of Bach’s solo string writing. Across his cello and violin works there is an intense feeling of intimacy that colors each of the varied emotions which emerge. No matter how many lines Bach is able to paint across a single instrument, there is an unceasing unity of expression at play in these works. I wanted to find my own way of inhabiting this sense of intimate directness, a challenge for myself due to my own love of juxtaposition and multiplicity across a single piece. Soliloquy attempts to draw a listener through a singular line, a monologue that moves through the marimba and reveling in the affective waystations that come out of its own material. Soliloquy was written for David Moliner.
Nick Bentz (2024)