Short Reviews [Malcolm Galloway - 2014 - "Moto Perpetuo for Quartet No.1"]

Also from 2014, and again featuring just one piece of music, just 4:32, this is scored for a very unusual quartet indeed, namely for two harps and two marimbas. I have always been a fan of marimbas, xylophones and glockenspiels (and used to pay the last in a band when I was a teenager). I also used to see Steve Waller play gigs where he would have guests join in and one of those would often be Poli Palmer, but I have never thought of combining the percussive wooden nature of those sounds with that of a brightly plucked harp. The result is music which I found incredibly dense, as if the notes from the different instruments was creating a wall, which is only exaggerated with the striking of the instruments. Again there is repetition, but the result is something which is very different indeed to the other release from the same year.