Cyclus (Perc Ens 14)

1st Place Winner of the 2019 OU Percussion Press Composition Competition, Cyclus is a product of the composer's long-standing interest in musical canons, puzzles, fractals, and mathematical patterns. It features musical ideas that seem to go somewhere only to begin again where they started, growing organically out of a single, small idea into something larger than itself.

Genre: Percussion Ensemble | # of Players: 14
Level: Difficult | Duration: 13:10

Instrumentation
Glockenspiel
Crotales (2 octaves)
Xylophone (Splash Cymbal, 3 Toms)
Vibraphone 1 (shared Tam-Tam)
Vibraphone 2 (shared Tam-Tam)
Marimba 1 (5-octave)
Marimba 2 (5-octave)
Marimba 3 (5-octave)
Marimba 4 (5-octave)
Chimes (Bass Drum)

Percussion 1: Claves, Bell Tree
Percussion 2: Suspended Cymbal
Percussion 3: Mark Tree, Egg Shaker, Suspended Cymbal
Percussion 4: Triangle, Suspended Cymbal, 3 Timpani

Program Notes
1st Place Winner of the 2019 OU Percussion Press Composition Competition.

Cyclus is a product of my long-standing interest in musical canons, puzzles, fractals, and mathematical patterns. I'm fascinated with musical ideas that seem to go somewhere only to begin again where they started, and I admire music that grows organically out of a single, small idea into something larger than itself.

Cyclus comprises five sections played without pause, each centered around a portion of a single musical canon. This canon, which I wrote beforehand, is never explicitly state in the piece, but each movement explores a section of its melody. The melody itself has some interesting characteristics: when played backwards and upside-down, it harmonizes itself. Additionally, as the melody progresses, it gradually cycles through every key before ending back where it started, like a musical Möbius strip. This canon is the seed from which the rest of the piece grows.

I hope that the interested musician will look for the numerous musical "games" and canonic constructions in the piece, but I trust that the music stands quite strongly in its own right – no audience should need to know its logic to perceive its heart.

– Austin Theriot

The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.

– Ecclesiastes 1:5-7

Scripture quotations are from the ESV®Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.