David Bruce - Berimbau

Berimbau by DAVID BRUCE

Instrumentation

solo piano

Duration

8mins

World Premiere

Matthew Schellhorn, 18 Nov 2007, Friends' Meeting House, Hertford, UK

Composed

Feb. 2007

Score

Available (Sample Page)

Programme Note

Berimbau is the first of a projected series of pieces for solo piano inspired by instruments from around the world. The aim is not necessarily to imitate the sound of the instrument, but more to use elements of the sound, or the approach to playing the instrument as a starting point and a point of focus for each piece.

The Berimbau is a percussive instrument used in the Brazilian dance/martial art Capoeira. It is made from a large wooden bow with a steel string and a resonating gourd. As played for capoeira the berimbau has essentially three sounds - two pitched sounds, one higher one lower, and a third buzzing sound. Throughout much of my piece this use of two alternating pitches together with a more percussive third sound can be found somewhere in the texture.

In listening to capoeira music on the berimbau I have often been struck by a rhythm which is half way between a three equal tripets and a quaver-semiquaver-semiquaver pattern – sort of a lazy triplet if you like. I took this rhythm as another of my starting points and notated it as a quintuplet filed with quaver - dotted semiquaver - dotted semiquaver, sometimes using it in isolation, sometimes contrasted with a simultaneous even triplet.

Finally the piece captures two different characters that I have noticed from the berimbau – in the first half of the piece the mood is misterious, tentative, almost feeling its way in the dark – rather like the capoeira dancers might size one another up in the opening stages of a dance. In the second half the mood becomes much more energetic and culminates in a frenzy of rhythm.

David Bruce

St Albans, February 21st 2007