WarHammer (Solo 4-Mallet Marimba + Track) [DIGITAL]

After a successful marriage of the marimba and electronics in Rimbasly and Concerto for Marimba, Percussion, and Synthesizers, McCarthy decided to revisit and re-imagine the combination. Unlike the concerto treatment of the instrument in the earlier works, WarHammer merges the marimba and electronics into a single entity challenging the listener to distinguish between them.

Genre: Marimba (4-mallet) & Track | # of Players: 1
Level: Medium Difficult | Duration: 8:00

Instrumentation
Marimba (5-octave)

Program Notes
WarHammer was written for Michael Burritt, Director of Percussion Studies at Northwestern University. It was premiered by Shanon Wood at Interlochen, summer of 1999. Like much of McCarthy’s marimba music, this piece was inspired by the music of Frank Zappa played by “Mothers of Invention” marimbist, Ruth Underwood. You can hear a recording of the piece on Nathan Daughtrey’s CD, “Spiral Passages” (also available from C. Alan).

According to Lisa Rogers in Percussive Notes: “Advanced marimbists will find supreme satisfaction in performing this work, which I believe is destined to become a standard piece in the marimba repertoire.”