Rodiguez EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

Robert Xavier Rodríguez

EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS (2006)

for Percussion

Ensemble

G. Schirmer, Inc.

New York, NY

duration: 10 minutes

Instrumentation

Player 1:

4 Timpani (32–30, 29–28, 26–25 and 24–32”)

Mark Tree

Bell Tree

Glass Wind Chimes

Player 2:

Vibraphone – share with Player 3 (2 bass bows needed)

Crotales (mounted over Vibraphone)

Player 3:

Vibraphone – share with Player 2 (2 more bass bows needed)

Glockenspiel

Suspended Cymbal

Wind Gong

1 Maraca

Player 4:

Vibraphone

Suspended Cymbal

Large Rain Stick

Player 5:

Marimba – 4.3 octaves (2 bass bows needed)

Player 6:

Marimba – 5 octaves

Mounted Tambourine (with head)

Player 7:

5 Nipple Gongs

Sizzle Cymbal

Triangle

Large Shaker

Small Shaker

Quijada (or Vibraslap)

Small Tamtam (tub of water needed)

Player 8:

Chimes (Special hammers needed, with felt on one side of each head)

4 Almglocken

Large Tamtam

Large Guiro

Notes:

1) If nipple gongs are not available in the pitches given, the timbre may be sampled and played on a synthesizer. The part could also be played on brake drums or on nonpitched gongs with approximate pitch relationships.

2) If Almglocken are not available in the pitches given, the part may be sampled and played on a synthesizer. The part could also be played on non-pitched cowbells with approximate pitch relationships.

Composer’s Note

El día de los muertos is a ten-minute work for eight percussionists which I began at the Bowdoin Music Festival (Brunswick, Maine) in June, 2006 and completed in Dallas the following August It was commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, and it was premiered by that ensemble in December, 2006. As the title indicates, El día de los muertos is a programmatic work, based on the Mexican folk holiday The Day of the Dead The Mexican version of All Soul’s Day has a distinctively playful and nostalgic identity which sets it apart from the ghostly images of the American and European Halloween, as exemplified in Mussorgsky‘s Night on Bald Mountain and Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre

Following Aztec legends, the Mexican tradition represents the dead as sleeping in a cool, quiet place called Mictlán. To begin the holiday, the living send their children (symbolically, those who are farthest away from death) to the cemetery to invite the spirits of the dead to come out for a day to cavort with the living. In my scenario for the work, church bells ring to help the children awaken the spirits. The living prepare ceremonial dishes and create home altars with memorabilia of their departed loved ones. The skeletons then rise from their graves, and the spirits of the dead are reunited with the living. There is a joyous fiesta, with singing, story-telling, feasting and dancing. At the end of the day, bells ring again and the revels end. The living, again led by the children, say goodbye to the dead, and the spirits return to their graves, where they resume their rest in Mictlán for another year.

The percussion writing for El día de los muertos is unusual in that it employs no drums other than timpani. Instead, there is a rich assortment of pitched percussion (crotales, glockenspiel, two vibraphones, chimes and several tuned gongs), with prominent use of two marimbas (the marimba being the national instrument of Mexico, as well as an apt musical representation of skeletons). These pitched sounds are accompanied by triangle, bell tree, wind chimes and a variety of non-pitched cymbals, shakers and unpitched gongs, with atmospheric use of maraca, rain stick and vibraslap, substituting for the uniquely Mexican instrument, the quijada, literally the jawbone of an ass.

The work’s Mexican roots are reflected in the use of several popular Mexican folk songs, most prominently A la puerta del cielo (At the Gate of Heaven) and La realidad (Reality). Other melodies are El Colúmpico, Los pronunciados, Jacinto Treviño and Laredo. All of the Mexican melodies are combined in a quodlibet at the center of the work, where the living and the spirits of the dead are united. Two other, highly contrastive, musical elements are a two-chord dirge-like chaconne to depict the Aztec land of the dead and, as a European liturgical reference, the Gregorian chant Offertorium for All Saints’ Day: Exultabunt Sancti in Gloria (TheSaints Rejoice in Glory).

Adagio tranquillo q = 60

El día de los muertos

Robert Xavier Rodríguez

Vibes (motor always off) bowed (2 bows)

Percussion

Marimba bowed (2 bows)

sim. (bring out upper line)

(sounds as written)

Nipple Gongs

(with felt side of special hammers - felt on one side of hammers)

Vibes (motor always off)

(Nip. Gong)

Tamtam)

fixed down or locked) Chimes

)

legatissimo

Gong (scrape)

(Nip. Gong)

Gong)

(Nip. Gong)

Marimba

Nipple Gongs

Tree)

Tree)

(Mar.)

(Mar.) Mounted Tambourine (rim)

(Nip. Gong)

(Vibes) (Glock.) (Vibes) (Mar.) (Tamb.)

(Sizzle Cym.)

(Chimes)

Mounted

Nipple Gongs

Chimes (with felt)

Glass Wind Chimes

Cym.)

Cym.)

(Vibes) (Glock.) (Vibes) (Mar.) (Mar.) Nipple Gongs (with hard side of hammers)

(Sizzle Cym.)

(Mar.) (Nip. Gong)

(Chimes)

Cym.)

Gong)

Gong)

gliss.)

(Timp.)

Mark Tree

(Crot.)

(Vibes)

(Mar.)

(Bowed, 2 bows) (Mar.)

Vibes (Vibes mallets)

Vibes, bowed p leg. (Vibes)

Perc.

Perc.

(Timp.) (Vibes) (Glock.)

(Vibes)

mallets

Cym.)

Chimes (random ringing, like church bells) (with hard side of hammers)

Gong)

(Small Tam.)

Sizzle Cym. (scrape)

Cym.) (Chimes)

(Vibes)

(Glock.)

(Vibes)

(Mar.)

(Mar.)

Nip. Gongs

(Siz. Cym.)

Large Tamtam

(Vibes) sfz

(Glock.)

(Vibes)

(Mar.)

(Mar.)

(Nip. Gongs)

(Siz. Cym.) (Tam.)

(Crot.)

(Vibes)

(Mar.)

(Mar.)

G.P.

Perc.

(Nip. Gong)

Large

(Chimes )

Perc.

Gongs

Sizzle Sym. (scrape)

Chimes

Large Tam.

(Timp.)

Bell Tree

Mark Tree

Crotales (brass-tipped mallets)

Gongs

Chimes

Large Tam.

Large Tam. (scrape)