Creation : 24 February 2011 at Koerner Hall, Toronto, CA
Commissioner: Soundstreams, Canada Council for the Arts et le Royal Conservatory of Music
Musicians: 6 percussionnists
Duration: 15′
Publishing: Canadian Music Center
“HEX is scored for 6 percussionists, its musical design uses six-note harmonic pillars and uses a large 35 note scale comprised of 6 sets of 6 notes (two of the sets have an overlapping note, thus the 35 note scale). Originally I had planned to write the work in 6 sections. However, as the trajectory of the piece developed, this changed to single free-flowing movement in 3 main sections. Notions of superstition around numbers fascinate me. What is perhaps most intriguing is that such superstitions are found in every culture throughout known history, up to and including modern society. Consider the hysteria surrounding the upcoming “12/12/12” – a date which even reasonable and educated people are prone to speculating: will a date with this sequence of numbers bring about the end of the world? We, as humans, seem to be inherently susceptible to such notions. The word Hex, literally, to curse, and its corresponding digit 6, encapsulate this tendency perfectly: 666 – the “number” of the “beast”. Superstition; Luck; Belief; Intuition; Sixth Sense: ingredients in the creative process. The work begins with all 6 percussionists playing keyboard instruments, with the two marimbas each having multiple musicians playing on them, as is traditional in Guatemalan marimba playing. The drive of this section is a rhythmic cycle that unifies the entire work. The 2nd part of the work, slower in pacing, features a mixture of miscellaneous percussion instruments and keyboard instruments. This section showcases an antiphonal vibraphone duet. The duet is then incorporated with dance-like interjections from the previous section which prompt virtuosic “trading 2’s” solos. The solo section concludes with a frenetic wall of sound from the ensemble, which brings us to the 3rd and final section of the work. In the final section, the musicians pick up and begin to drum on sheets of heavy-gauged aluminum foil, which makes a beautiful but delicate metallic sound when played. All of the musicians converge onto the vibraphones as they ritualistically, and perhaps superstitiously, drum on the foil. Soon the foil is applied to the vibraphone bars (creating “prepared vibraphones”) and the drumming gradually becomes more intense. Through this drumming section the foil gets beaten down into the bars, dramatically altering the sound of the vibraphone. The work reaches its conclusion after a giant crescendo, where the percussionists tear the foil off the vibraphones and slowly crumple it, creating a transformed resonance that ends the work”.
Andrew Staniland