Tag Archives: layton

The Place of the Solitaires

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In 2005 in started a set of pieces for percussion; the first, “The Pulling into the Sky” (which you will also find a little further down this page), was quickly finished and I had started the second when I got a little sidetracked. Not quite two years later I finally returned to the piece, and this is the result. This movement introduces melodic percussion into the ensemble: bells, marimba and vibraphone. The title is from a Wallace Stevens poem, which when you find it will explain the piece as well as anything else can.
[Steve Layton]

Un altro buon lavoro di Steve Layton per sole percussioni, “The Place of the Solitaires” del 2007, concettualmente collegato con un brano precedente, sempre per percussioni, “The Pulling into the Sky”, scritto due anni prima.
Rispetto al precedente, questo nuovo movimento utilizza anche un set di percussioni melodiche: campane, marimba e vibrafono.
Il titolo si ispira a un poema di Wallace Stevens, che riportiamo, e che, secondo Steve, spiega il brano meglio di ogni altra cosa (…un luogo di perpetuo ondeggiare…)

Steve Layton – 2 pieces for percussion ensemble

Wallace Stevens – The Place of the Solitaires

    Let the place of the solitaires
    Be a place of perpetual undulation.

    Whether it be in mid-sea
    On the dark, green water-wheel,
    Or on the beaches,
    There must be no cessation
    Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
    The renewal of noise
    And manifold continuation;

    And, most, of the motion of thought
    And its restless iteration,

    In the place of the solitaires,
    Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.

What the Thunder Said

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A new work by Steve Layton (composer based in Seattle, born 1956) that I like.
The composer says:

A “journey” or “meditation” similar to this year’s earlier O, Hebdomeros. A tiny snippet of a recording (5 seconds from the second movement of my composer-friend Alex Shapiro’s At the Abyss) was stretched to something over 18 minutes. This became the template for the composition, a kind of path that I had to accept, finding my way through, making whatever evocations and connections appear somehow form a thread of their own sense and meaning. The title is taken from the final section of T.S. Eliot’s iconic poem “The Wasteland”.

Steve Layton – What the Thunder Said (2006) flute, piano, vibraphone, strings/electronics