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For angelic, "I'm-on-the-way-to-heaven" sounding instruments, conventional wisdom says you've got your harp, and your piano, and that's about it. Violin, maybe. But there's another transcendent instrument that has been overlooked for enrollment in the pretty instruments pageant: the hammered dulcimer. Seventy-four strings of bliss. At least when Martha Giles plays it. The hammered dulcimer - a trapezoid-shaped log that looks like a chunk from a piano's guts - is an instrument upon which people typically play Celtic tunes. Folk songs from America, Ireland or Scotland. Not Martha Giles. She plays Bach. And since the hammered dulcimer is played like a xylophone, with two delicate little mallets tapping strings more interweaved than America's highways, you can't really read music while you're doing it, so Giles memorizes the Bach suites and plays them on the dulcimer. You read that right: she memorizes the Bach suites. Giles' music is the perfect soundtrack for a wedding, a massage or a yoga session, because once those strings start resonating they take over the whole room with a mesmerizing, aggressive loveliness. It could clear your sinuses...
- Malcolm Venable
The Virginian-Pilot 4/18/08 Inventio: Transcriptions for Two Hammered Dulcimers ...On my first playing of their recording, I was struck how different just the material is from most other recordings of dulcimer music. This is not a collection of traditional tunes but some fine selections of classical music. Next I noticed the intricate melodies and countermelodies weaving their ways around each other... I can only imagine how much time and serious study of the material it took to create this recording. Upon further listening, I was amazed at the timing of each strike of the hammers as Martha and Bob played their separate parts as though one person sat at a keyboard... One of my favorite ways to enjoy this CD is with headphones, for the listener really gets a feel for the separate parts being played, the subtle use of switching from wooden hammers to padded hammers, the use of dampers to change the sound of the instrument and the ever-present sense of timing... The artists set their project and themselves apart from most others simply by their choice of material, for few musicians playing traditionally folk instruments have the training, background or familiarity with classical music to attempt such an endeavor. Inventio is a good collection of classical material done with sensitive artistry and an amazing sense of timing and coordination by Martha Giles and Bob Wadsworth... - Bob Clark
Hammer Heads Newsletter 6/30/08 |
For audio samples of Inventio: Transcriptions for Two Hammered Dulcimers, visit CD Baby.  |
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