McCarthy-Bundles of Sticks (2S)

The title of Daniel McCarthy's piece Bundles of Sticks is taken from the Italian word for bassoon, Fagotto which literally means "bundle of sticks." This piece was commissioned by Barrick Stees, professor of bassoon at Michigan State University and premiered by Mr. Stees and Keith Aleo at the Interlochen Center for the Arts summer music festival in the summer of 1998. The unique combination of bassoon and percussion/marimba/vibraphone creates many dark and "woody" colors as suggested by the title of the first movement, "Wood and Wind." This movement explores the lyric qualities of the bassoon in its upper register. The second movement is a rhythmically animated diolog between the percussion and bassoon. The low register punctuations in the bassoon are reminiscent of the percussive baritone saxophone playing of Steve (the "Doctor") Kupka of the Tower of Power horn section.

Number of players: 2
Difficulty: Intermediate

Instrumentation

Player 1: Bassoon
Player 2: marimba (4.3 octave), vibraphone, kick bass drum, low tom, 2 log drums, low timbale, bongos, large cowbell, brake drum, bamboo tree, splash cymbal, gliss gong