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It's extraordinary! It's expressive! It's exciting! Today, the xylophone strikes a pose.
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning… Do you remember that rainbow toy xylophone you had when you were younger? That’s based on an instrument that pop music loves. Gotye and the Violent Femmes use that blocky sound in songs about heartbreak, but that’s not all the xylophone can do. Xylophones can be found all over the world. No one knows exactly where or when they came from, but they started to appear in orchestras in the 1800s. Modern xylophones are a set of tuned wooden bars arranged like the keys of a piano. You play them with sticks. Xylophones are smaller than marimbas and have a bright, piercing sound, like from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. Here, the xylophone represents the rattling bones of a skeleton or fossil.
Some people think the xylophone came from Asia, and composers have been using them to make Asian-inspired sounds since Puccini. The xylophone here is from China, from the opera Turandot.
In the Mother Goose Suite, Ravel uses the xylophone to paint a picture of pagodas, or towers with lots of stacked roofs, which are found all over Asia. Elgar imagines the xylophone as wild bears playing around in his Wand of Youth Suite No. 2. Don’t they sound fun?
Are they silly or serious in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6?
Xylophones can be dramatic, like from Salome by Richard Strauss. And suspenseful! What’s behind Door #1 in Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók?
And majestic! The xylophone announces the arrival of the emperor in Kodály’s Háry János Suite. And exciting! Like from Catfish Row by George Gershwin.
What do brides feel on their wedding day? The xylophone tells you in Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring. Huapango by José Pablo Moncayo uses rhythms and melodies from Mexico, played here by the xylophone.
Teddy Brown was an American entertainer in the early 1900s, known for his incredible xylophone playing. He was a member of the New York Philharmonic but moved into vaudeville and nightclubs. Here he is whistling while he plays.
One of the most famous percussionists today is Ruth Underwood. She played the xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and other instruments with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. It’s x-traordinary! It’s x-quisite! It’s the x-zylophone.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
