Product Review

Biography: Hailed by Time magazine as the world's greatest classical marimbist , Leigh Howard Stevens repertoire ranges from Renaissance music and the Preludes and Fugues of J. S. Bach, to original marimba works written by contemporary composers expressly for him. Much of this unaccompanied literature was considered technically and musically impossible by one player until the development of Mr. Stevens' new system of four-mallet technique. Percussionists and marimbists worldwide have adopted his revolutionary approach and his book on the subject of four-mallet marimba technique, Method of Movement, has been translated into six languages. It is difficult to find a single aspect of marimba technique, repertoire or design that has not been profoundly changed by the work of Leigh Howard Stevens. From Stevens Grip to the types of motions used to play the instrument; from the length and material of the mallet handles to the wrapping and stitching of the heads; from the first height-adjustable all wooden marimba frame in the 1980 s to the first fully-tunable resonators in the 1990 s; from one-handed rolls and baroque ornaments to the use of contrasting roll types; from the early polyphonic Helble Preludes to the works of John Serry, David Maslanka and Joseph Schwantner to his own original compositions and transcriptions.