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Concerto for Vibraphone
& Orchestra

 

Fabian Müller

Concerto for Vibraphone & Orchestra

Proposal for a fascinating sound world and an innovative surprising concert-program

The Vibraphone's great potential for expressiveness and tonal possibilities, is surprising and fascinating.

In his Concerto award-winning Swiss composer Fabian Müller brings the Vibraphone together with the symphonic orchestra. The result is a large-scale three-movement concerto that shows this instrument in a new light.

Demo recording

The following Audio files are realized as demo-recordings produced with sampled orchestra in the computer.

The orchestral sounds give just a hint of the real sound. Please use a good headphone or Stereo-equipment

Listen & Watch Vibra
The Music Vibra

About the Concerto for Vibraphone & Orchestra

Orchestration: 1202 2000 timpani. Strings
Duration: approx. 27 '

Work text by the composer: While the marimba, the wooden relative of the vibraphone, has been able to establish itself in literature and in the classical concert scene in recent years, in fact experienced a boom, the vibraphone completely wrongly leads a "wallflower existence" in the classical concert program. So I was all the more delighted by Evelyn Glennie's wish to write a concerto for this great instrument for her. An instrument that I have always valued very much and that has therefore played an important role in my orchestral works to date.

In compositions for percussion instruments, rhythmic gimmicks are often in the foreground. These should of course not be missing in my vibraphone concerto. But I see the vibraphone primarily as an expressive melody instrument. The immense dynamic range, the possibility of polyphony and the precise phrasing by the pedal bring the vibraphone close to the piano. This great expressiveness should be able to develop in the solo part of this work.

The first movement begins with a dramatic force of sound, outshone by the bright sound of the vibraphone.
It is further characterized by a pulsating forwards thrust in the dialogue with the orchestra, in which orchestral sound eruptions are paired with a lyrical theme. After the dramatic first movement, the “unearthly” qualities of the vibraphone come into play in the calm, meditative middle movement, spherical sounds and mysterious-mystical moods, embedded in the velvety and dense strings. The last movement turned into a brilliant finale, a rondo scherzando that demands a lot from virtuosity and shows the instrument from its brilliant side.

Fabian Vibra

Fabian Müller, composition

www.swisscomposer.ch

Fabian_Müller_1.jpg

Fabian Müller’s (*1964) works have been performed by some of the great musicians ofour time including David Zinman, Andris Nelson, Sir Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood and Steven Isserlis and in venues such as the Carnegie Hall in New York,Berliner Philharmonie, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Tonhalle Zurich, the KKL Lucerne, and at the St. Petersburg Philharmonia.

Numerous CD recordings with, among others, the Philharmonia Orchestra (under David Zinman), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra or the Petersen Quartet Berlin (for ARS Produktion, col legno, Capriccio, Sony Classical, etc.) show his versatile oeuvre.

 

Following his cello studies at the Zurich Conservatory with Claude Starck, Fabian Müller studied composition in Zurich and the USA, where in 1996 he won the Jacob Druckman Award for Orchestral Composition.

 

In 2006, he received a cultural award from the Canton of Zurich and, in 2012, the Zollikon Art Prize for his work to date. In 2016 he was one of the nominees of the Swiss Music Prize of the Federal Office of Culture.

In addition to his work as a composer, he is interested in folk music. For ten years (1991- 2002), he worked on the publication of the Hanny Christen Collection, a ten-volume folk music anthology with over 10.000 tunes from the 19th century

Eiger  -  A symphonic Sketch

Premiere live at Festival «Interlakner Musikfestwochen» 2004

Latvian National Symphony Orchestra

Andris Nelsons

Nachtgesänge -Orchestral Songs

Malena Ernman, Mezzo-Soprano 

«Nachtgesänge» (Orchestral songs by Fabian Müller

1999) after poems by Hermann Hesse

Philharmonia Orchestra, London

David Zinman

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