Rock the Gavotte (Rameau & Dittersdorf)

arranged for percussion ensemble

Brian Slawson

Level: Med-Easy

Duration: 3:10

Personnel: 8 players

State Lists: Florida

Release Date: 2023

Product ID : TSPCE23-022

Price: $35.00

Item #: TSPCE23-022

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Description

Rock the Gavotte is an entry-level percussion ensemble work arranged by Brian Slawson. This piece draws its source material from a Baroque gavotte by Jean-Phillippe Rameau and a Classical period harp concerto by Carl Ditter von Dittersdorf. The traditional material is infused with a modern rock groove that students can easily latch onto. Slawson arranged the piece to be suitable for middle school percussionists in terms of skillset, musical structure, and rhythmic content. This piece could also be utilized in a collegiate method course as well.

Rock the Gavotte ships as a printed, professionally bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or tablet viewing.

Instrumentation

Crotales (2 octaves)

Glockenspiel

Xylophone

Vibraphone

2 Marimbas — (1) 4-octave, (1) low A

4 Timpani

Drumset

Percussion — 2 woodblocks, triangle

Reviews

“Rock the Gavotte” is Brian Slawson’s reimagining of two Baroque compositions, Rameau’s “Gavotte and Variations” and the first movement of Dittersdorf’s “Harp Concerto in A Major,” which make up the A and B sections, respectively, of the piece’s ternary form. Slawson re-orchestrates and adapts a portion of the thematic material from each piece for an ensemble of keyboard percussion instruments plus timpani. The work’s unique title, however, comes from the final piece of the puzzle, and something that, let’s be honest, we have always secretly desired: a heavy drumset beat accompanying the Baroque dance.

—Marco Schirripa
Percussive Notes
Vol. 61, No. 6, December 2023