The Toccata for Percussion Instruments (1942), was written by the twentieth-century Mexican composer

Carlos Chávez Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conducting, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influence ...

. It is among his most popular compositions. The composition is written for six musicians playing a number of percussion instruments.

Background

Chávez was approached in the 1930s by the

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

composer

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

, who asked whether Chávez could compose a piece for the percussion ensemble that was touring with Cage. The 12-minute piece was completed in 1942, in time for Cage's West Coast tour. However, the ensemble was unable to perform the piece, due to the challenging sustained drum rolls in the opening measures. The Toccata was eventually premiered in 1948 by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México, the orchestra which Chávez founded and conducted. Eduardo Hernández Moncada, however, had already conducted a premiere on October 31, 1947, with members of the orchestra of the National Conservatory. Roberto García Morillo, ''Carlos Chávez: Vida y obra'', Tierra Firme (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1960): 117. . In 1952 Xavier Francis choreographed the Toccata for the Academia de la Danza Mexicana, under the title ''Tóxcatl''. Scenery and costumes were by

Miguel Covarrubias Miguel Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud (22 November 1904 — 4 February 1957) was a Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian. Along with his American colleague Matthew W. Stirling, ...

, and the principal dancers were Xavier Francis, Raquel Gutiérrez, and Elena Noriega. The title refers to one of the eighteen fixed festivals of the Aztec calendar, celebrated in the fifth month of each year in honor of

Tezcatlipoca Tezcatlipoca ( ) or Tezcatl Ipoca was a central deity in Aztec religion. He is associated with a variety of concepts, including the night sky, hurricanes, obsidian, and conflict. He was considered one of the four sons of Ometecuhtli and Omec ...

(the "smoking mirror" or "mirror of fire"). Roberto García Morillo, ''Carlos Chávez: Vida y obra'', Tierra Firme (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1960): 119. .

Structure

The Toccata is composed for 2

snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...

s, Indian drums (1 small and 1 or 2 larger ones), 2

tenor drum A tenor drum is a membranophone without a snare. There are several types of tenor drums. Early music Early music tenor drums, or long drums, are cylindrical membranophone without snare used in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. They cons ...

bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter usually greater than its depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. The head ...

claves Claves (; ) are a percussion instrument consisting of a pair of short, wooden sticks about 20–25 centimeters (8–10 inches) long and about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in diameter. Although traditionally made of wood (typically rosewood, ebony ...

maraca A maraca ( , , ), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas, also known as tamaracas, were rattles of d ...

, 2

suspended cymbal Classical suspended cymbal A suspended cymbal is any single cymbal played with a stick or beater rather than struck against another cymbal. Common abbreviations used are "sus. cym.," or "sus. cymb." (with or without the period). Most drum ki ...

s, large and small

gong A gongFrom Indonesian language, Indonesian and ; ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ; ; ; ; is a percussion instrument originating from Southeast Asia, and used widely in Southeast Asian and East Asian musical traditions. Gongs are made of metal and ...

s, 2 tubular chimes,

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

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...

, and 3

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

, distributed among six players. It is in three movements, played without a break. The Toccata was one of the first major pieces written for percussion ensemble alone, becoming a cornerstone in rhythmic music. Originally, a toccata was a fast, virtuosic composition. However, Chávez applied the word "

toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virt ...

" in its original sense, using its root meaning of ''toccare'', or "to touch", which he used to display the various touches an artist can give a performance, rather the different lyrical shades. For the U.S. premiere, during which the composer himself conducted the

Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. The orchestra holds a regular concert season from October until June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from ...

, Chávez wrote in the program notes that "The Toccata was written as an experiment in orthodox percussion instruments – those used regularly in symphony orchestras, that is, avoiding the exotic and the picturesque. Therefore it relies on its purely musical expression and formalistic structure." The first and last movements of the three-movement work are both in

sonata form The sonata form (also sonata-allegro form or first movement form) is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of t ...

, during which the composer explores long, sustained rolls, and syncopated patterns. There is a passage in which the players are instructed to muffle the drums by covering the heads with a cloth or chamois. The slow middle movement emphasizes the timbres and tones of the metallic, normally

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

percussion instruments. During the movement, the glockenspiel and xylophone also play fragmented melodious strands, bringing out the composer's Mexican roots. This offers a moment of relaxed interlude before the violent final movement. The piece has been described as rhythmically ebullient, and as a brilliant study of rhythm and color, "creating an original climate of intense attractiveness and achieving great diversity of accents, sounds, and nuances."

Cultural references

* Toccata for Percussion Instruments was used as music accompaniment for the

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

''See Saw Seams'' (1965) by Stan Vanderbeek. * In 1983,

Jiří Kylián Jiří Kylián (born 21 March 1947) is a Czech former dancer and contemporary dance choreographer. He is considered one of the greatest contemporary dance choreographers in Czech history. Life Jiří Kylián was born in 1947 in Prague, Czecho ...

choreographed a ballet, '' Stamping Ground'', to Chávez's Toccata.

Background

Structure

Cultural references

References

Further reading