Psathas: Muisca for Percussion Duo

Description

A gentle liveliness inhabits Muisca's first movement Soledad. Time signatures constantly shift, with bar lengths changing by a beat or half-beat, while elsewhere certain syncopated figures recall the strum-based rhythms of the work's original incarnation for guitar. Sleepy yet mysterious, the second movement Chia opens with a solo vibraphone passage, before the marimba joins in for some gentle melodic interplay. The marimba then settles into a lightly swinging rhythmic bed in its rich lower register, allowing room for the vibraphone's statements in its resonant lower voice. The gentle, odd metered marimba groove that opens the final movement El Dorado lays a foundation for the vibraphone's own groove based melodies to interlock with, their lines tumbling through shifting time signatures reminiscent of the first movement. The duo's increasingly busy interplay is peppered with quickfire synchronised runs in the final minute of the movement, bringing Muisca to an exhilarating conclusion.