Argumenta
World-renowned Danish percussionists have teamed up with trailblazing composer, Philippe Manoury. The fruit of a multi-year collaboration, this album features World Première recordings of Manoury’s work.
“Argumenta synthesizes, in a way, all my previous compositions for keyboard percussion. Written for the outstanding Reumert/Elten Percussion Duo (who perform my works from memory!), Argumenta incorporates many of the techniques and ideas I had experimented with in previous works”.
“The title ‘Argumenta’ is quite abstract but implicitly evokes a kind of joust or conversation in which the two musicians exchange ideas and proposals that will serve as a basis for confrontations. Sometimes the two protagonists ‘talk’ about the same thing in the same voice; sometimes they continue to talk about the same thing, but in more individual ways, and sometimes they oppose, pursue, interrupt, or influence each other.”
“The marimba is a simple instrument: tuned wooden bars amplified by tube resonators. One would think that it wasn’t possible to create a legato phrasing with this construction. However, the virtuosity of today’s marimbists has transcended the limitations of the instrument. This extraordinary development has allowed me to articulate musical ideas that I previously wouldn’t have considered realizable. I am fighting against the fact that the marimba is a simple construction!” — Philippe Manoury
Reumert and Elten also present Le tombeau de Couperin in an exciting new version. Maurice Ravel’s masterful hybrid — true to Baroque forms but unmistakably Ravel — was written for solo piano and then orchestrated by the composer. These adaptations, in turn, inspired Mathias Reumert to transcribe the suite for keyboard percussion instruments.
Track Listing
- Le livre des claviers, II. Duo de marimbaphones 6:11
- Argumenta 11:06
- Suspension-effondrements (arr. M. Reumert) 6:31
- I. Prelude (arr. M. Reumert) 2:54
- II. Fugue (arr. M. Reumert) 3:03
- III. Forlane (arr . M. Reumert) 5:52
- IV. Rigaudon (arr. M. Reumert) 3:02
- V. Menuet (arr . M. Reumert) 4:44
- VI. Toccata (arr. M. Reumert) 4:10
Philippe Manoury (b. 1952)
Maurice Ravel (1875--1937)
Le tombeau de Couperin