The following notes on the works featured in this album are provided by the performer, Tatsushi Omori.
We hope this will help listeners find even deeper enjoyment from these works.
Resonscape I — Resonance in Silence
About This Album
Many of the works included in this album were not originally written for the marimba.
By performing choral works, songs, and instrumental pieces on the marimba, we hoped to offer a slightly different perspective on the resonance and emotion inherent in each piece.
Although the marimba is a percussion instrument, it possesses a warm, gentle tone and a long, beautiful sustain.
Layers of voices, the flow of melody, the tension that drifts within silence—
when translated into the resonance of wood, these elements reveal expressions distinct from the original works.
Even familiar pieces may feel as though they are being encountered for the first time.
This album was recorded at Yatsugatake Yamabiko Hall, a space renowned for the beauty of its resonance.
The time during which sound is born, expands into space, and gradually fades away is an essential part of marimba music.
With the hall’s rich reverberation, the music begins to breathe more deeply and naturally.
No special knowledge is required—
we invite you simply to listen attentively and immerse yourself in the lingering resonance.
Track Commentary
Hymn
Karl Jenkins
— The doorway to this album. From the stillness before sound is born.
Originally written for the female vocal ensemble Adiemus,
Hymn expresses a universal sense of prayer and spirituality through wordless voices.
Beginning in quiet serenity, the expanding chorus gradually leads toward a climax
that holds both solemnity and warmth.
Through the marimba, the breath and resonance of human voices are reimagined as the sound of wood.
Each note dissolves into space, and the silence between sounds deepens the sense of prayer.
This album begins with an act of listening—to silence itself.
Rhythm Song
Paul Smadbeck
— Within stillness, a pulsing sense of life emerges.
Composed by American percussionist and composer Paul Smadbeck, this piece vividly brings out the rhythmic nature of the marimba.
As its title suggests, the true focus is not melody, but rhythm itself.
Clear repeating motifs and layered short phrases create a structure reminiscent of minimal music, generating both propulsion and exhilaration.
The marimba’s rich resonance and articulate attack interact, allowing rhythm to resonate three-dimensionally within space.
Even within its motion, the lingering resonance and silence that follow each sound become perceptible, heightening the contrast with stillness.
Amazing Grace
— Energy that once moved outward returns inward, toward prayer.
This gospel song, passed down across generations worldwide, was written in 18th-century England by John Newton.
It speaks quietly of grace, forgiveness, and gratitude.
By rendering this vocal melody on the marimba, its purity and simplicity emerge with greater clarity.
Each note is carefully shaped, gently guiding the listener inward.As a quiet prayer, the piece invites an experience of listening deeply into silence,
through the marimba’s warmth and resonance.
Tanti Anni Prima
Astor Piazzolla
— Within prayer, a narrative of memory and emotion quietly emerges.
Originally conceived as the song Ave Maria, this work was later arranged for oboe for the 1984 Italian film Henry IV (1984 film),
at which time it was given the subtitle Tanti Anni Prima (“Once Upon a Time”).
While Piazzolla is widely known for his passionate and dramatic style,
this piece reveals a more lyrical and tender beauty.
Within its quiet and simple melody, subtle yet dramatic expressions gently appear,
leaving a lasting impression.
Performed on the marimba, the melody takes on a more introspective character,
with its resonance lingering delicately in space.
A piece of profound stillness, where prayer and memory quietly intersect.
Spiegel im Spiegel
Arvo Pärt
— Everything returns to stillness, and time itself comes to a halt.
Composed in 1978, Spiegel im Spiegel is a work of crystalline clarity that embodies Pärt’s aesthetic.
By reducing musical movement to its bare minimum and employing repeating patterns, the piece gradually dissolves the listener’s sense of time.
The decaying tones of marimba and piano, together with the lingering resonance of the hall, bring into focus the work’s deeply introspective stillness.
More than the sounding notes themselves,
it is the silence that follows—the space after the sound has faded—that leaves the strongest impression.Placed at the end of the album, this piece creates a quiet expanse in which music dissolves into silence, gently returning the listener to a state before listening began.
Afterword
After the final sound fades, what remains is not merely silence, but a faint resonance shaped by memory, space, and the time spent listening.
This album traces a single cycle:
from stillness, through motion, and back again into silence.
Each piece carries its own landscape, yet all ultimately return to the same place—
where sound dissolves and awareness opens.
Music does not end when sound ceases.
It continues quietly within the silence that remains, and in the space between one sound and the next.
After the final sound fades, what remains is not merely silence, but a faint resonance shaped by memory, space, and the time spent listening.
This album traces a single cycle:
from stillness, through motion, and back again into silence.
Each piece carries its own landscape, yet all ultimately return to the same place—
where sound dissolves and awareness opens.
Music does not end when sound ceases.
It continues quietly within the silence that remains, and in the space between one sound and the next.
If this album offers even a brief moment to step away from the flow of daily life and simply listen, there could be no greater joy.
— Tatsushi Omori
Resonscape II ― After the Resonance
About This Album
After sound has faded, space may appear unchanged—
yet in reality, traces of resonance quietly remain.
Resonscape II — After the Resonance explores what remains
after sound is born, resonates, and fulfills its role.
If Resonance in Silence was an attempt to listen to silence itself,
this work focuses on the process by which sound moves toward stillness.
The marimba, though struck to produce sound,
is fundamentally an instrument of decay and resonance.
Sound exists even as it disappears.
Within this transience, musical time is quietly inscribed.
Through four works of differing origins—solo and duo, original and arranged—
this album traces a flow in which resonance transforms, unravels, and dissolves into silence.
Track Commentary
Land
Takatsugu Muramatsu
— Resonance emerges as landscape.
In Land, the marimba does not speak primarily as melody, but as an element that shapes space itself.
Its expansive resonance evokes a quiet landscape, suggesting earth and horizon.
Within a sense of time that lacks clear direction, sound simply exists, guiding the listener inward.
Placed at the beginning, this piece forms the foundation of the album’s sonic world.
Deux Arabesques, L. 66: No. 1, Andantino con moto
Claude Debussy
— Sound becomes line, and begins to flow.
In Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1, the melody constantly shifts, drifting seamlessly through space.
On the marimba, it emerges as a more defined “line,”
allowing the connection between notes to be perceived almost visually.
This piece marks a transition from stillness to gentle forward motion.
Wooden Music
Rich O’Meara
— The material of wood comes into the foreground.
In Wooden Music, the restrained motion of earlier works takes shape as a clear rhythmic presence.
The repetition and dialogue between two marimbas highlight both the physical resonance of wood and the presence of the performer.
As the most dynamic work in the album, it reveals the moment where resonance becomes action.
Sleep
Eric Whitacre
— Sound unravels, opening into space.
In the final piece, Sleep, music ceases to move forward and instead rests within harmony and resonance.
Originally written for voices, its performance on the marimba releases the melody from words, allowing it to float as pure sound.
The process of sound fading becomes the music itself.
Silence is not an ending, but a space that remains open to what follows.
Afterword
After the final sound fades, a slightly different stillness emerges.
It is not silence, but something like a trace left behind by time that has passed through sound.
What this album follows is not the moment sound occurs,
but the process by which it comes to rest.
As resonance disappears, it quietly leaves its shape within the listener’s awareness.
If this album invites you to linger in attentive listening, even for a brief moment after the music ends,
that would be our greatest hope.
— Tatsushi Omori
