Kusakawa-Yurikago (Cradle) arr. Fujii/Zator-2V/2M

Yurikago (Cradle) is a Japanese folk song, originally writen around 1922 by composer Shinsaku Kusakawa and lyricist Hakusyu Kitahara.The sound of stone (sanukite) and wood (marimba) is well suited to describe the nostalgic scene of a baby sleeping in its mother's arms. Although the original song is written in 4/4, this arrangement is written in 3/4 to convey a swinging cradle feeling, and the orchestration was kept very simple to emphasize the warmth and tenderness of the orinigal melody.

The original work was arranged by Rika Fujii as a duo for sanukite and marimba. Brian Zator has expanded the duo arrangement to a quartet using two marimbas and two vibraphones. The world premier of the quartet version (2010 PASIC) had one of the second vibraphone players using an older, out-of-tune vibraphone in the middle section to close imitate the Sanukite timbre.

Number of players - 4+
Difficulty - Medium
Instrumentation -
Vibraphone 1
Vibraphone 2
Marimba 1 (4.6 octave low "E")
Marimba 2 (4.6 octave low "E")

Score includes mallet suggestions as well.