About this Piece

For many composers, writing for an untuned percussion instrument could be limiting, but for composer Michael Gordon it offers an opportunity. “I really love to think, ‘Well, I’ve painted myself into a corner; now, what do I do?’ When you’re highly constrained, you have to be incredibly inventive,” he says.

A founding member of the trailblazing new-music collective Bang on a Can, Gordon showed off that inventiveness in his hour-long piece Timber (2009) for six 2x4 pieces of hardwood, now considered a modern masterpiece among the small catalog of works for untuned percussion. In approaching a percussion étude for LA Phil Principal Percussionist Matthew Howard, Gordon first asked Howard for his favorite instrument in the section. “He said ‘bass drum,’” Gordon recalls. “It makes so much sense, because the bass drum is such a beautiful instrument, and in a way, it’s the heart of the orchestra.”

2bd (the standard abbreviation for two bass drums) was written specifically with the LA Phil’s instruments in mind. With a fixed palette of “two sounds—one higher than the other—and two mallets,” Gordon sets the drums in conversation: “Sometimes they purr and sometimes they shout,” he explains, requiring the percussionist’s left and right hands to beat different complex rhythms simultaneously.

—Amanda Angel