FLYING TIME

Flying Time for marimba duo was composed during December of 2002. It was commissioned by Stephen Paysen and Dominic Donato and is dedicated to them. Stephen and Dominic had requested that a number of composers write miniatures based on the concept of time, and the title refers to various aspects of this. In particular, the title is meant as a reflection of how, as one grows older, time seems to move ever faster. This is reflected in the pacing of the piece which, although in one tempo throughout, seems to get faster and more eventful as it unfolds due to its increasingly faster surface rhythm.

Near the end of Flying Time, in a passage marked “spastic,” the fairly steady surface rhythm of rapid sixteenth notes slows into widely spaced six part chords, providing a temporary respite from the sixteenth note texture before the piece returns to the ubiquitous sixteenths, now in unison rather than in octaves. The final two measures wedge out to the outermost limits of the range of the two marimbas, simulating perhaps a second takeoff after the preceding bumpy landing.