Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Mutant Telescope is divided into two sections - the first featuring mallet work and the second featuring the players hands to produce sound.

Timbral shift is a key focus of the piece and is largely achieved by the gradual transition through several different mallets both traditional and non-traditional. The hypnotic repetitions of the first half create sympathetic resonances in the instrument (the accumulation of resonance creating a further timbral shift over time). Sympathetic resonance has been an interest of mine for some time and the phenomenon has been utilised in a number of earlier works involving the vibraphone.

The second half of the piece largely calls for the cimbalom player to use his or her hands to strike, pluck or strum the strings. The piece climaxes with several intense glissandos across the entire range of the cimbalom.

Mutant Telescope was a working title that just stuck. It originally related to the feathered semiquavers featured in the first half of the piece, but it has evolved to encompass the strange harmonic makeup and texture of the piece as a whole.

Work Details

Year: 2012

Instrumentation: Solo cimbalom.Required mallets: Chinese Yangqin mallets, soft rubber mallets, yarn-wrapped marimba mallets, traditional cimbalom mallets (medium and hard).Other materials: two medium sized coins (Australian 20c coin or similar)

Duration: 12 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Commission note: Commissioned by Joshua Webster.

First performance: 15 Oct 12. Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Perth

The composer notes the following influences, styles, genres etc associated with this work:
minimalism, atonality, exoticism, acoustic musique concrète, structured improvisation