Magic Mirror

Item details

• Description +

  • Duration: 6 min.
    
    Magic Mirror is a fantasia for solo 5-octave marimba. It also represents a return to ideas of modal exploration that are found in my earlier marimba compositions. In the spirit of a fantasy, the piece features several textures and modes that are loosely connected. Some of the material was composed on the marimba with other sections and harmonies coming from work with the piano.
    
    This piece represents my tenth solo for the marimba. This mysterious instrument has always given me a constant source of inspiration and captivation. My first compositions were on and for marimba and I continue to delight in the pure texture and harmonic surprises the instrument can produce. The marimba seems to always find a way to show me a new world of sound.

• Instrumentation +

  • Marimba

• About the composer +

  • Christopher Swist spends equal time as a percussionist, composer, engineer, writer, and educator. His music education started at age 6 with Buffalo Philharmonic percussionist John Rowland and continued through multiple degrees in performance and composition from SUNY-Buffalo (Jan Williams) and The Hartt School (Ben Toth and Al Lepak). He culminated his unique compositional voice, performance practice, and recording engineering into 2 solo albums: Whitewater of 2001 and Duality of 2013. His third solo album, Equal Simplicity, is being released in 2025.
    
    Christopher’s varied catalog of orchestral, concerti, percussion, chamber and electronic music is published with Alfred Music, Studio 4 Music, Keyboard Percussion Publications, Edition Svitzer, and Bachovich Music. Swist’s latest work is a Double Concerto for Vibraphone and Marimba that he also performs as the vibraphone soloist. His music has been performed by the Grand Rapids Symphony, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra, American Modern Ensemble, Grupo PIAP, YoungArts, and the United States Military Academy. He also presents recitals as a performer/composer who plays both acoustic and electronic music.
    
    Christopher is a symphonic musician as well, performing in the percussion sections of symphony orchestras in Hartford, New Haven, Springfield, Waterbury, Bridgeport, Ridgefield, and Norwalk. He has been the principal percussionist of the New Britain Symphony Orchestra since 1999 and directs the NBSO’s educational outreach programs and steel pan/percussion fusion ensembles.
    
    Professor Swist is an educator, pedagogue, and administrator. He is Director of Recording Arts at Trinity College in Hartford. He also designed and built EvenFall Studio LLCin New Hampshire, and, is a pro audio writer/reviewer for SonicScoop. Christopher was recently inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame.

• Reviews +

  • Review (Percussive Notes, March (58) 2012)
    
    

     

    This six-minute, unaccompanied fantasia for four-mallet marimba opens with steady arpeggiated figures on Bflat, which outline modern sounding yet unconventional harmonies. This loosely tonal composition then transitions (after 18 measures) to a slower and a softer sounding chorale on the lower end of the marimba—which articulates quartal/quintal harmonies that give way again (after 13 measures) to the arpeggios of the opening section.
    
    Christopher Swist is fond of this type of compositional style (his earlier “Streamline,” for example). Through his use of sixteenth-note triplets, Swist transitions from 4/4 to 6/8, thus establishing a compound-meter groove also characterized by repeatedly descending arpeggios before returning to the compositional reference of his opening 4/4 passage. “Magic Mirror” ends very quietly on an E-flat major triad marked pppp.
    
    Advanced four-mallet technique and mature musicianship are a prerequisite for an effectual performance of this challenging solo. This selection is appropriate for an audition or a junior percussion recital.

    —Jim Lambert

• Credits +

  • Front Cover graphics and layout: Ronni Kot Wenzell
    Engraving: Christopher Swist/Johan Svitzer
    Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark
    Copyright © Edition SVITZER
    www.editionsvitzer.com

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