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rogersvibes Sat, 03/20/2021 - 17:41

Very impressive! I have been working on the next movement in this sonata (the fugue) for years now, and I've yet to get to the end. There's an album of a guy playing a bunch of Bach stuff on vibraphone whose name escapes me. I believe he plays the whole of this sonata. It's interesting to me that they often play with what look like marimba mallets. The shirt is great too!

c.stallard22 Fri, 03/19/2021 - 22:14

In reply to by rogersvibes

Me too Tristan.
I made it to the end, but it was back in college and on marimba...it would be interesting to pull out the music and see how well I could play it today on vibes.

In this performance, this is very picky, but I wanted to hear him dampen better. It felt like there were opportunities to take advantage of the subtleties of vibraphone dampening to move to one note to another with that tiny slur action instead of having a tiny pause between each dampened note like he does here. I definitely can't do it as well as I'm imagining I'd want to hear it, but just an observation.

robwaring Fri, 03/26/2021 - 14:59

I think it's a fabulous performance! His phrasing and dynamic control are fantastic and also he has a great understanding of the style. I love it. He makes it sound like it was written for the vibraphone. Just imagine if Bach had written for the vibraphone!

Jerry Weir Fri, 04/02/2021 - 16:33

Beautiful rendition. Super attention to detail and some really well executed dampening that imparted a very musical flow to the phrases. In a few spots there was an opportunity for more dampening to make the line a bit clearer as noted by Stallard - I agree but it takes nothing away from the performance. When it comes to ringing notes the vibes can be a beast! I played this for my first recital at MSM and this interpretation is definitely better than mine was!

The vibe player that did a lot with performance and notation of the Bach Violin Sonatas for vibraphone is Steven Machamer. I haven't seen the recording available anywhere in a long time but I think this young person may be the next vibraphonist to tackle this tough repertoire and make a recording. Good luck!

J

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