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Quick Blood (Percussion Quartet)
Genre: Percussion Ensemble
# of Players: 4
Level: Medium Difficult | Duration: 4:45
Publisher: C. Alan Publications | Copyright: 2020
Download mp3 | Click on images to left for score sample
Rating:
Price:
$40.00
Item #:
26950
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Notes & Instrumentation
Quick Blood is a rhythmically vigorous quartet centered around mallet instruments, with carefully layered combinations and hockets and a pounding bass drum feature. Silverman’s first work for percussion ensemble, this music was composed in 2001 for percussionists Paul Fadoul, Matt Strauss, Douglas Wallace, and Cynthia Yeh as “Battery Four.”
Genre: Percussion Ensemble | # of Players: 4
Level: Medium Difficult | Duration: 4:45
Instrumentation
Percussion 1: Marimba 1 (5-octave; shared with P. 4), Large Concert Bass Drum, Triangle
Percussion 2: Marimba 2 (5-octave)
Percussion 3: Vibraphone 1
Percussion 4: Marimba 1 (5-octave; shared with P. 1), Triangle, Crotales (2 octaves), Xylophone, Vibraphone 2
Program Notes
Quick Blood" was composed in 2001, and it is mostly for mallet instruments (marimbas, vibraphones, xylophone) often in the “four hands” method of having two people simultaneously share an instrument. Melodies are passed note-by-note back and forth from one marimba to the other, creating a special kind of stereo sound. The music is "tonal," meaning that it uses the sorts of diatonic harmonies that are common to much older classical music. It is rhythmically very vigorous, with a feeling of perpetual motion. There is also a very dramatic use of the large orchestral bass drum. The title "Quick Blood" comes from Silverman's orchestra piece "Her Quick Blood Runs Dancing," of which this percussion quartet is a slightly expanded and embellished re-orchestration of the middle movement. The original, longer title is itself taken from a poem written in 1640 by Thomas Carew, a contemporary of Shakespeare. It's a love-poem sung by chorus in the orchestral work that Silverman chose to continue a series of works that address historical conflicts between religion and science:Fond man, thou canst believe her blood
Will from those purple channels flow;
Or that the pure untainted flood
Can any foul distemper know;
Or that thy weak steel can incise
The crystal case wherein it lies.
Know, her quick blood, proud of its seat,
Runs dancing through her azure veins;
Whose harmony no cold nor heat
Disturbs, whose hue no tincture stains:
And the hard rock wherein it dwells
The keenest darts of love repels.
But thou repli'st, “behold, she bleeds!”
Fool! Thou'rt deceived, and dost not know
The mystic know whence this proceeds,
How lovers in each other grow:
Thou struck'st her arm, but 'twas my heart
Shed all the blood, felt all the smart.- note by Ted Wilks (2002) for the Delaware Symphony
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Video
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Quick Blood
Quick Blood, composed by Adam Silverman. Performed by the University of South Alabama Percussion Ensemble (Luis Rivera and Matt Greenwood, directors) at the Collide Contemporary Percussion Festival 2015.
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Product Reviews
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Percussive Notes New Literature Review
With a title like “Quick Blood,” it is expected that we are about to see an exciting performance, and Adam Silverman does not disappoint. This thrilling piece for percussion quartet is ambitious, to say the least, requiring a high degree of technical dexterity to perform accurately and the musical maturity to play it with only the appropriate amount of chaos.
Through much of the piece, an undercurrent of driving eighth notes is played by at least one of the four players. Though this perpetual motor remains throughout with no tempo changes of any kind, Silverman does a marvelous job of changing the feel through his use of accents and harmonic movement. In the active sections of the first major portion of the work, melodies are given to the marimbas through a series of traded accents that pop out of a texture of oscillating eighth-note gestures. In the transitions between these melodies, precedence is given to the vibraphone, which plays full chords with long durations, supported by the eighth notes in the marimba that give the impression of open rolls. This effect makes these transitions sound half the speed of the surrounding sections. The piece climaxes with a series of impact points punctuated by accented quartal harmonies and the concert bass drum, ending in perfect contrast to how it begins: softly and choral-like.
The physical requirements for this piece are impressive. All four players need to have the four-mallet dexterity to perform many of these sections accurately. Outside the standard double vertical, lateral, and independent techniques, there must be a control between dead strokes and “live” strokes at the brisk tempo. There are also a couple of standout technical issues that individual players will need to look at, including playing crotales with one hand and marimba in the other, oscillating the eighth-note motor in the right hand while the left plays a melody in octaves, and holding an interval of a ninth at the bass end of a marimba for some of the loud impact points. All these tasks may be challenging, but the sounds and music they create justify the practice necessary to perform them.
“Quick Blood” is an exciting and challenging work. It is best suited for a set of advanced percussionists, but its tonal harmonies, driving nature, and head-banging impact spots will make it enjoyable to any audience.
Kyle Cherwinski
PERCUSSIVE NOTES
VOL. 59, NO. 3, JUNE 2021 Kyle Cherwinski on Jun 29th 2022
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