''Jeu de timbres'' is a single-movement

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

l composition by the American composer

Steven Stucky Steven Edward Stucky (November 7, 1949 − February 14, 2016) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer. Life and career Stucky was born in Hutchinson, Kansas. At age 9, he moved with his family to Abilene, Texas, where, as a teenager, he ...

. The work was commissioned by the

National Symphony Orchestra The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It also performs for the annual National Mem ...

and completed in late 2003. It was premiered in January 2004, with the National Symphony Orchestra performing under conductor Leonard Slatkin. Stucky, Steven (2003)
''Jeu de timbres'', for orchestra: Program Note by the Composer
Retrieved May 28, 2015.

Composition

''Jeu de timbres'' has a duration of roughly four minutes. It was originally commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra as an

encore An encore is an additional performance given by performers after the planned show has ended, usually in response to extended applause from the audience.Lalange Cochrane, in ''Oxford Companion to Music'', Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Pres ...

piece for a 2004 French music festival. Therefore, Stucky drew inspiration for the piece from the music of such

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

composers as

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

and

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

—even directly quoting an unspecified Ravel piece near the end of the composition. The title ''Jeu de timbres'' loosely translates from the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

to "play of colors" and is a regular French phrase for the

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

, which is occasionally featured in the piece.

Reception

Allan Kozinn Allan Kozinn (born July 28, 1954) is an American journalist, music critic, and teacher. Kozinn received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for ''T ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' praised the piece, describing it as "packed with shimmering string and woodwind textures yet with a changeability and bite that are among the most recognizable hallmarks of Mr. Stucky’s music." However, James Roy MacBean of '' Berkeley Daily Planet'' was slightly more critical, opining that it "jammed a vast variety of orchestral colors into too small a musical space to do anything noteworthy." Reviewing a 2014 performance with the

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...

, music critic Kevin Chen remarked that the work "truly elicited a visual response, as onductorValcuha and the orchestra brought almost a film-score atmosphere to the hall. Ultimately, the piece drew a few early standing ovations and whistles, and it was noted that the glockenspiel player in particular seemed to be having a lot of fun."

References

{{Italic title Compositions by Steven Stucky 2003 compositions Compositions for symphony orchestra 21st-century classical music Music commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra