EVERGREEN
for Percussion Duo
Robert Honstein
2020
Full Score
Duration ~30 minutes
Five movements
1. Fading Light
2. Sleeping Land
3. Shortest Day
4. Longest NIght
5. Rosy-Fingered Dawn
Instruments
Marimba (5 Octave)
Vibraphone
Glockenspiel
Crotale (second octave G and C)
Note
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away.
-Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day
Evergreen is a thirty minute, five movement work for Marimba, Vibraphone and Glockenspiel. I finished writing this piece in December 2020, approaching the longest night of a very long year. Thinking about the experience of isolation and hardship brought on by a global pandemic, I found hope and solace in Cooper’s poem The Shortest Day Her words reminded me of our ancient relationship to the Solstice. How for many cultures, across many generations, it has been a time of celebration and joy. A time where in the midst of dark days and bitter cold we feel the possibility, indeed the inevitability of light triumphing over darkness. For me, the sense of hope and joy expressed in this story, served as a beautiful reminder of our collective resiliency in the face of great difficulty.
Over the course of five movements, Evergreen anticipates, celebrates, and looks beyond the solstice. Beginning with Fading Light the music builds intensity with ever expanding intervallic patterns, creating a moody space of anticipation and longing. Sleeping Land, a sparse, nocturnal respite, follows with a moment of quiet contemplation. Shortest Day bursts into an explosion of energy and sound, reflecting the wild celebrations of the solstice itself, while Longest Night, expresses an austere, somewhat somber reminder of the darkness that still envelops the winter landscape. Finally, we arrive at the RosyFingered Dawn. It is a new day and a a quiet optimism emerges. Hushed certitude in the coming light gradually blossoms into a more forceful expression of hope and rebirth.
Evergreen was commissioned by arx duo and a consortium of percussionists: DoubleBeats, CHannel2 Percussion Duo, The Up:Strike Project - Directed by Matthew Lau and Karen Yu, Taylor Davis, Russell Fisher, Jose-Antonio Caballero, Johnathon Westcott, Darrien Spicak, Orion Wysocki, Eric Whitmer, If + When. It was premiered March 6, 2021 by the Sustain Music Project, Seattle, WA.
PERFORMANCE NOTE
The piece was conceived as a continuous five movement work but feel free to extract movements and play them separately or in various combinations that suit your programming needs.
I suggest placing the Glockenspiel directly in front of the vibraphone high-end to accomodate the integrated Glock/Vibe passage work.
NOTATION
The Glockenspiel is notated in two ways: on a separate staff; as isolated notes included on the Vibraphone staff. If written on a separate staff the notes follow the usual transposing convention. If included on the Vibraphone staff the notes are written at sounding pitch. For example, in measure 98 of the first movement, Fading Light, the Glockenspiel note on beat 1 is played two octaves lower than written. Likewise, all other Glockenspiel notes follow the same rule in this movement.
*From m.160 to end double vibe note with a glock note at the same written pitch, resulting in a sounding glock note two octaves higher.
still and fragile, slow and spacious, rubato
GLOCKENSPIEL
still and fragile, slow and spacious, rubato
steady pulse, with growing tenderness, q »ca. 42
warm but distant warm but distant
steady pulse, with growing tenderness, q »ca. 42
p
a slow awakening, warm and expressive but with restraint, q»ca 76
Vibraphone Marimba w warm and clear
**tenuto indicates a gentle accent
and clear p
**tenuto indicates a gentle