Blues for Gilbert

Mark Glentworth

General Info

Year: 19
Duration: c. 6:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Zimmermann
Cost: Score and Parts - $0.00   |   Score Only - $0.00

Instrumentation

Vibraphone

Program Notes

Blues for Gilbert has its origin in the same way that many Bach organ pieces and some Mozart keyboard works originated: It was a written-down version of the composer's improvisation. It is essentially a jazz piece that has been turned into an attractive composition for a classical percussion recital by the act of being formalized as fully notated music.

Mark Glentworth, a percussionist, is well-known as a studio musician, and for three years was a member of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' avant-garde chamber group The Fires of London. He also played as the leader of the rock group Blaze, which is part of the texture of Davies' opera Resurrection.

Glentworth is known in the U.K. for a large quantity of stage, film, television, and TV commercial music, as well as for a few written-out concert pieces. He is a graduate in percussion from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. Among his scores for British Channel 4 dramas are Berkoff's Macbeth and The Tell-Tale Heart.

Glentworth's percussion teacher was Gilbert Webster. During one of his last lessons with Webster, the teacher, who was dying, asked him to just play the vibraphone for him while he rested. Glentworth improvised some music for him on this and other occasions. Later he wrote some of the improvised material down and arranged it as a vibraphone solo.

It is a gentle piece, using the "cool jazz" feeling that the vibraphone now often evokes. There is great tenderness in its shimmering feeling, and a sense of loss. It is, of course, dedicated to the memory of Gilbert Webster.

Commercial Discography

Online Recordings

Peter Sadlo, Vibraphone

Recent Performances

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Works for Percussion by this Composer

Blues for Gilbert - Vibraphone