Rainbow: each
Composer: Oetomo Robert
Title: Rainbow
Composer: Robert Oetomo
Instrument: marimba
Genre: percussion
Year of publication: 2012
Duration:3 min.
Review (Percussive Notes, March 2013)
The best way to describe this fourmallet marimba solo is safe and palatable. Lasting around three minutes, the solo begins with material that is worked through a quasi-theme and variations model. The melody is quite simple, which allows for great flexibility from the harmonic side of the composition. This harmonic material primarily stays within diatonic options—beginning with major tonic, shifting to relative minor, etc.
From a technical standpoint, this piece will work well for a beginning to medium level four-mallet player. The intervals utilized rarely exceed the width of a fifth, there are no wide arm stretches across the marimba, the overall tempo is moderate, and rhythms are never more complex than running sixteenth notes. While not groundbreaking, this marimba solo has merit in cleverly used harmonic choices and sticking patterns required for performance.
—Joshua D. Smith
Rainbow
Written for solo marimba, Rainbow is loosely based on the ‘Theme and Variation’ form. Each variation showcases the expansive sound world of the 5-octave marimba: lush, warm and mellow in the low to middle registers, while the high register exhibits brilliance, brightness and translucency. This piece utilises the different sound qualities of the marimba to depict the beauty, transparency and the vivid colours found in a rainbow.
Robert Oetomo
Credits
Front Cover graphics and layout: Evi O.
Engraving: Robert Oetomo & Johan Svitzer
Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark
Copyright © Edition SVITZER
