Balinese Ceremonial Music - Gender Wayang Transcribed by Colin McPhee - sheet music & recording

Includes a recording of the work for two pianos as well as the score. The pianos, like the Balinese paired instruments, were intended to be tuned a little apart (as is the case for these recordings). While Canadian composer Colin McPhee lived in Bali for the decade of the 1930s, he was so enamored of the music of the island's local percussion orchestra, the gamelan, that it shaped his entire compositional style. His Balinese musician friends were, for their part, intrigued when his piano arrived. As described in his book, A House in Bali, they were puzzled by the thick-sounding Western-style chords, but they quickly were impressed by the way one or two people at the keyboard could imitate the multi-layered simultaneous patterns of their own music. While in Bali, McPhee made over 40 direct transcriptions of Balinese gamelan compositions. Back in New York in 1941, McPhee recorded these three (which conveniently fit on the two sides of a 78 rpm record). His partner was the young British expatriate composer, Benjamin Britten. The set of transcriptions comprises three works, arranged in a typically Western fast/slow/fast suite. Since Balinese music with its patterns was an inspiration for minimalism (which McPhee, who died in 1964, did not quite live to witness) this music sounds surprisingly more modern.

This and other torrents of ebooks, scores, films and recordings will be found at through my website's Trading Post :

http://www.nachtschimmen.eu

http://www.nachtschimmen.eu/zachar/tradingpost.htm

NIGHTSHADES music theatre language ebooks NACHTSCHIMMEN

info: zachar@nachtschimmen.eu