Amazonia

*Eight duets composed around the theme of the Amazon* for recorder Duet. 

1. Anaconda
2. Three-toed Sloth
3. Jaguar
4. Piranha
5. Spider Monkey
6. Caiman
7. Toucan
8. Hummingbird

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Recorder Magazine - Winter 2020

Sheet Music Reviews/New Publications

Lance Eccles - Amazonia - Treble and Tenor - OMP289

The Recorder Magazine readers will be familiar with Eccles as his compositions are reviewed here regularly. The titles, and presumably his inspiration, are often animals or natural phenomena. Amazonia is no exception - each of the eight short pieces depicts a rainforest animal, fish or bird. Sometimes the connection is a little tenuous, but we all take our inspiration where we can find it! Opportunities for playing with others have been infrequent, but I did manage a play-through with a friend.  There is a lot of scalic and broken chord figuration with a few accidentals for the unwary. Our first thought was that these would make a nice musical way of working on scales and arpeggios, but there is more to them than that.

Syncopated rhythms, within as well as between the parts, and some interesting modulations add a bit of spice to the mix; and the absence of articulation or dynamic markings allows scope for vivacity and expression. We both thought some of the metronome marks were a bit conservative, and that some would benefit from being played a bit faster in performance. These would suit upper intermediate players, or above. They would be fun and audience friendly to perform although probably not all together. A couple of them would have nine staves per page, which can make moving between them a bit tricky. 

Reviewed by Alison West

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_Score 8 pp. Parts 8 pp._