Bata

Description

The title refers to to religious drums in traditional Afro-Cuban festivals and rituals. Dedicated to the composer's father, the work opens with a piccolo imitating a whistle. "This melodic fragment is heard throughout the piece in various guises and nuances, always against a canvas of drums. Slow sections, marked Lento and Andante espressivo, are interrupted by fast ritmico sections. These build to a final "Ritmico Ritual" in which the drumbeats accelerate until the last bar, when all ceases abruptly to allow the whistle to be heard in the wind."