WAVERING III -Motion blur，for Marimba Solo and 3 Percussionists（2023）

Wavering III — Motion blur was commissioned by Takeshi Kubota，who asked me to compose a new work for solo marimba. ‘Motion blur’ in the title refers to the blurring that appears in a photographic image when the camera is moved during an exposure. The solo marimba is placed at the centre of the stage immediately in front of another metaphorically ‘hidden’ marimba in an attempt on my part to emphasise musical effects in visual terms. The same-note repetitions on the interval of a perfect fifth (C and G) at the start of the piece allude to the opening motif of Mouvement，the third piece in Debussy’s first set of Images. The two marimbas initially play identically but gradually drift apart as the music progresses until they come to symmetrically mirror each other. The other percussion instruments located to left and right function like stereophonic speakers，amplifying the musicality of the solo marimba rather than imitating its figurations in the manner of the ‘hidden’ marimba. The way in which sounds detached from the solo part spread to the groups of instruments situated around the soloist explains why I consider this work to be part of my ‘Wavering’ series of compositions.