Percussion instruments are perhaps the oldest form of musical instruments, going back beyond the limits of recorded history. In Western music drums are important in mediæval times, including the small copper bowls that are antecedents of today’s timpani—nakers. Timpani—with their close musical allies, trumpets—had an important and respected rôle in instrumental ensembles right through the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical periods of musical history. And while the history of the orchestra in the 19th century focused upon the expansion of the woodwind and brass sections, it was ultimately in the 20th century that the percussion section came into its own. Its innovations were no doubt influenced immensely by the sensational effect that visiting Javanese gamelan musicians had upon Western ears at the great Parisian Exposition Universelle of 1889. Thenceforth, twentieth-century composers increasingly exploited the expanding sonic universe of what seems a limitless array of percussion instruments and their unique colors. Today, a typical catalogue of contemporary percussion instruments is astounding in its numbers and variety.
The contemporary symphony orchestra includes this formidable array of instrumental colors, and these same resources have led to a burgeoning repertoire for stand-alone percussion ensembles. These innovative ensembles are part and parcel of our contemporary musical life, and are found everywhere now in public schools, colleges and universities, and professional organizations.
Blake Tyson is well known in percussive arts circles as an active teacher, clinician, and composer. His many compositions for various groupings of percussion instruments are an important resource for percussionists everywhere. He holds degrees from Kent State University, the University of Alabama, and a doctorate in percussion performance from the Eastman School of Music. Currently, he is a member of the faculty of the University of Central Arkansas.
According to the composer, Ceiling Full of Stars had its genesis in vivid childhood experiences with a small planetarium that projected galactic views on the ceiling of his home. It evidently provided hours of childhood fantasy play with its projection of a “ceiling full of stars.” The mesmerizing images of childhood carried through to this sonic retransformation. In the words of Tyson, the composition is “. . . a journey through space as seen through the eyes of a child.” The work was commissioned by the Texas Christian University Percussion Ensemble, and was given its première by them in 2009.
It is set for eight or nine players, playing four marimbas, two vibraphones, glockenspiel, chimes, crotales, and four triangles. The four triangles are differentiated in pitch—high to low. The delicate “ping” of crotales emanates from a pitched, fully chromatic set of small, thick, round, brass or bronze discs. Crotales—sometimes called “antique cymbals”--first appeared as early as Hector Berlioz’s use, but rarely until the time of Debussy and Ravel. Now, they are a standard complement in the vast panoply of contemporary percussion resources.
Ceiling Full of Stars begins softly with the lightest of metallic textures: triangles, vibraphones, glockenspiel, chimes, and crotales. Listen particularly for the high, ethereal
crotales. Pointillist “zings” gently punctuate the floating soundscape. Gradually, rhythmic activity increases, as layers of ideas stack up, leading to a crescendo that ends with the first entry of the mellow wooden bars of the marimbas. They lead off with a steady, almost hypnotic, ostinato that comes to inform the whole composition. The four marimbas seem to compete with each other, cascading alternatively, but all in a tight grove of ascending scales that carry it all along. In the best of allusions to some well-known post-modern musical techniques, layers of ideas careen alone, slipping and sliding back and forth over each other. It all presents a pleasant kaleidoscope of simple ideas made complex in their juxtaposition—and in essence, one of the cornerstones of the work. While the motoric tempo continues, near the middle, out of the deep, mellow register of the marimbas, a slow “chorale” tune emerges—strongly redolent of a mediæval plainchant. The chorale fades away and the textures of the opening return, but varied in figurations. As the conclusion gradually winds down, the atmospheric, soft metallic instruments predominate, as at the beginning. The stellar experience wafts away.
Ceiling Full of Stars exemplifies the creativity and artistry that inform the twenty-first century percussive arts. The “fourth estate” of the symphonic orchestra is now an eloquent, sophisticated equal resource in the remarkable richness of colors and textures of the ensemble.
--Wm. E. Runyan
©2023 William E. Runyan