Why is it important to promote the four-octave vibraphone?

From Dr. Brian Graiser:

Despite its status as a relative newcomer to Western Art Music, the standard-range (3-octave, F-F) vibraphone is now considered an essential component of any percussion section. While performers, composers, and audiences have begun to realize that the extended-range vibraphone (most commonly reaching 3.5 [C-F] or 4 [C-C] octaves) is an increasingly common modern instrument, most people are unaware that music has been written for the four-octave vibraphone for 80 years, dating back to the very first composition ever to include the vibraphone (see the essay below for more information on this fascinating historical surprise)!

Considering that a growing number of professional orchestras, university studios, and even some high school music programs now possess extended-range vibraphones, I feel it is only a matter of time until, much like the acceptance of the five-octave marimba, the four-octave vibraphone is adopted as the new standard model of vibraphone, bringing with it an expanded repertoire and further means of artistic expression. Were it not for the vibraphone's limited range, I believe that its many unique capabilities (e.g. sustain, pedaling, mallet-dampening, vibrato, and numerous extended techniques such as harmonics, bowing, and pitch-bending) would likely have placed the vibraphone, and not the marimba, at the forefront of solo keyboard percussion literature long ago. Fortunately, this constraint may one day be a thing of the past, as a small but growing number of companies are producing four-octave vibraphones, including Bergerault (France), Marcon (France), Studio 49 (Germany), VanderPlas (Netherlands), DeMorrow (USA), Yamaha (Japan), and Saito Gakki (Japan). 

There will of course always be a need for the 3-octave (F-F) instrument, particularly in the trunk of the gigging vibraphonist or the cramped quarters of the orchestra pit, but I believe that the next natural step in the evolution of the vibraphone and its repertoire is the acceptance of the extended range as the new normal. To that end, I have engaged in a number of projects to promote the 4-octave vibraphone, including arranging and transcribing several works for use on the 4-octave vibraphone (such as Claude Debussy's Sunken Cathedral), commissioning other composers to write new works for the instrument (such as Christien Ledroit's serenity, shattered [2010] for 4-octave vibraphone and electronics), and composing new works myself (such as my Concerto No. 1 ["Lulu"] for Four-Octave Vibraphone [2015], the world's first concerto for the extended-range vibraphone, as the culmination of my doctoral dissertation/project). However, the fate of the extended-range vibraphone truly lies in the hands of the broader community of percussionists and composers, who I hope will take up the challenge and join me in exploring the untapped potential of the instrument.

I have created this webpage to assist those individuals who share my desire to research and/or promote the four-octave vibraphone. Here, I have compiled a number of resources (which I hope to update on a regular basis), including a visual index of existing 4-octave models, historical essays, and repertoire lists. I welcome any questions or comments via my contact page, and I wish you the best of luck in your musical pursuits. Thank you for stopping by!

*new* updated research on the history of the 4-octave vibraphone!

On October 1-2, 2021, I gave a conference introduction and research presentation at Dél-Alföldi Ütöhangszeres Szakmai Nap és Konferencia (DUSZK) — University of Szeged Bela Bartok Faculty of Arts (Hungary), in which I shared my most up-to-date scholarly work on the vibraphone. This is actually an UPDATE of my doctoral document, excerpts of which are still available further down on this page. I invite you to read my script, which contains some truly shocking new discoveries about the history of the vibraphone!

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The Deagan Catalog page for the Innovator IV- America's first four-octave vibraphone 

Four-Octave Vibraphones 
from around the world

Selected Repertoire for the extended-range Vibraphone

• Berg, Alban: Lulu (opera) and Lulu Symphonic Suite for orchestra, 1935 (in modern editions and performances, most passages in the extended range are considered ossia).
• Messiaen, Olivier: Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine for choir and chamber orchestra, 1944 (actually for 3-octave [C4-C7] vibraphone).
• Milhaud, Darius: Concerto pour Marimba, Vibraphone, et Orchestra for soloist and orchestra, 1947 (only the the high G#6 is used, and then only fleetingly; it is highly likely its inclusion was actually a compositional oversight).
• Henze, Hans Werner: Three Symphonic Studies for orchestra, 1956 (rev. 1964).
• Bernstein, Leonard: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story for orchestra, 1957 (only the high F#6 is used, and then only once; it is likely that the note was an oversight, but the part is now given as an ossia).
• Berio, Luciano: Circles for voice, harp, and two percussionists, 1961 (only a single low E3 is used; this is likely an oversight and is commonly omitted in performances).
• Marchetti, F.D.: Fascination, arranged for 4-octave vibraphone by Perry Chappell, 1966.
• Henze, Hans Werner: Symphony No. 6 for orchestra, 1969 (rev. 1994).
• Henze, Hans Werner: El Cimarron (1970) and Second Violin Concerto (1971) for orchestra (the vibraphone parts extend up to G6 but not below F3).
• Husa, Karel: Al Fresco for wind ensemble, 1973 (the vibraphone part extends well past the low F3 but does not go above the high F6).
• Henze, Hans Werner: Scenes and Arias from The Return of Ulysses for voices and orchestra, 1981.
• Henze, Hans Werner: Symphony No. 7 for orchestra, 1984.
• Henze, Hans Werner: Requiem for orchestra,1992 (the composer's use of the extended range must be brought into question, as it extends as low as D3 [within the 4-octave range] but also as high as D7 [which is outside the 4-octave range]).
• Loeffler, Charles Martin: Evocation, 1931 (the part calls for 3.5-octave vibraphone, see the "Photos of a One-of-a-Kind Deagan Vibraphone" article below for more information).
• Tippett, Michael: Rose Lake for orchestra, 1993 (the vibraphone part includes F#6 and G6 but does not extend below Bb3).
• Debussy, Claude: La Cathedrale Engloutie, transcribed for 4-octave vibraphone by Brian Graiser, 2009.
• Ledroit, Christien: serenity, shattered for 4-octave vibraphone and electronics, 2010.
• Olsen, Peter: Inner Structure for 4-octave vibraphone and electronic delay, 2010.
• Graiser, Brian: Concerto No. 1 ("Lulu") for Four-Octave Vibraphone, 2015.
• Graiser, Brian: Winter Meditation for solo 4-octave vibraphone, 2015.

Photos of a one-of-a-kind* deagan vibraphone

*UPDATED INFORMATION BELOW ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Below is a gallery of photographs recently taken by Allen Otte at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio. The pictures are of a one-of-a-kind extended-range Deagan vibraphone housed there. While not a four-octave instrument (the range is 3.5 octaves from a low C to a high F), it is nonetheless an important footnote in the history of the vibraphone.

According to a conversation I had with Oberlin Percussion Professor Michael Rosen at PASIC, the unique vibraphone was ordered by the Cleveland Orchestra in order to perform a new work commissioned for the opening of Severance Hall in February 1931 (the piece was Charles Martin Loeffler’s Evocation). This means that this low-C vibraphone predates the "Mystery Boosey & Hawkes Vibraphone of 1935" (see my historical essay to the right for more information) by at least four years!

However, following the premiere, the orchestra found it had little use for the instrument, and years later sent it to Oberlin. I am unsure when exactly the vibraphone was "adopted" by Oberlin, but it must have been before 1972 (thanks to a picture taken by Rosen of Allen Otte at the instrument that year preparing Stockhausen's Zyklus for his senior recital at Oberlin).

Interestingly, the orchestra had to briefly retrieve the instrument in February 1981 for a 50th anniversary gala concert, in which the orchestra recreated the program from Severance Hall's opening night. Aside from the two performances of Loeffler's work, it is unclear if the Cleveland Orchestra has used the instrument in any other performances.

Special thanks to Allen Otte for providing the photographs and Michael Rosen for his historical insight.

​*UPDATE* June 5, 2019: Thanks to Danielle Squyres for adding the following information:

     "There were actually three of those made, the one [at Oberlin], one instrument owned by Earl Hatch (an instrument I took lessons on!) and one other, whereabouts unknown... That's what Earl Hatch personally told me in one of my lessons. He ordered his directly from the Deagan Factory and used it for the Hollywood Hotel radio show and for studio work (there is a partial picture of it in a Bing Crosby session photo). HE knew there was one in the Cleveland area, his and he couldn't remember who or where the third instrument went to. I was under the impression that all three were made at the same time but not 100% sure about that. Same era for sure. This is Earl's custom vibe:"

Photo credit: Danielle Squyres

A research Gem: "The Vibe Tribe" Article
Newsweek Vol. 69, No. 20 (May 15, 1967), pg. 105

An Earlier Essay on the surprising history of the four-octave vibraphone

(excerpts from Graiser, Brian. "Concerto No. 1 ('Lulu') for Four-Octave Vibraphone: A Guide to the World’s First Concerto for Extended-Range Vibraphone," supplemental document to the DMA project "Creating the First Concerto for Four-Octave Vibraphone," University of Cincinnati, 2015, p. 6-8.)


Lulu, the First Four-Octave Vibraphone, and the Impact of World War II (1935-1945)

            The vibraphone’s arrival in Western Art Music finally came in 1935 with Alban Berg’s avant-garde opera Lulu (and its sibling Lulu Symphonic Suite), premiered as an incomplete work in two acts in 1937 in Zurich (Berg died in December 1935 before orchestrating the final act, although he had completed a meticulously annotated short score that was later used to complete the opera posthumously). Prior to that point, the vibraphone had been the exclusive tool of jazz musicians (such as Lionel Hampton, who first encountered and recorded on the instrument in 1931). Darius Milhaud incorporated the vibraphone to a small degree in 1932 with incidental music to Paul Claudel’s play “L’Annonce Faite a Marie,” but it was Berg’s ambitious opera that first placed the vibraphone on the concert stage. Reactions were mixed; some critics found the unusual timbre jarring, while others were more concerned with the impact Berg’s serial techniques would have on modern music (one reviewer for the New York Times bemoaned Berg’s “entirely ugly, unfertile, unvocal and inexpressive style…To us Mr. Berg and his ilk are becoming tedious, rather childish and distasteful. Isn’t it time that we say ‘enough’ to music which bluffs itself and will bluff us too, if we allow it do so? Who wants to be such a dupe of an artistic deception?”). When asked in an interview if there were any instruments he disliked, Igor Stravinsky responded, “Well, I am not very fond of the two most conspicuous instruments of the Lulu orchestra, the vibraphone and the alto saxophone. I do admit, however, that the vibraphone has amazing contrapuntal abilities; and the saxophone’s juvenile-delinquent personality floating out over all the vast decadence of Lulu is the very apple of that opera’s fascination.”

            Berg’s inclusion of the vibraphone in the Lulu opera as well as the five-movement Lulu Symphonic Suite was no fleeting whim; the vibraphone can be heard throughout all phases of both works, and the composer fully explored the then-cutting-edge capabilities of both the instrument and the performer. Berg paid close attention to the use of motorized vibrato, agile pedaling, and two-, three-, and four-mallet playing, in addition to making use of the instrument’s entire range. As a matter of fact, Berg’s exploration of the vibraphone’s range in Lulu is itself the most noteworthy aspect of the part: in both the opera and the Symphonic Suite, the part is clearly written for four-octave (C-C) vibraphone! On several occasions, the part ventures outside the standard three-octave (F-F) range but never strays beyond the extended four-octave range, going as low as C#3 and as high as B6 (in later editions, some of this material is put in parentheses as an ossia). At first glance, most percussionists attribute the extended-range material in Lulu to compositional error. This, of course, begs the question: how could Alban Berg, one of the esteemed champions of the Second Viennese School, be accused of making such an egregious oversight as to write outside of an instrument’s range on several occasions? Or, perhaps, did such an instrument actually exist at the time? Despite a heady flow of design improvements, no four-octave vibraphones suited to the part in Lulu were being built… at least, not officially.

English percussionist Michael Holloway’s letter to the editor published by the Percussive Notes Research Edition in 1977 in response to an earlier article on the history of the vibraphone opens up the possibility of a much earlier origin for the extended-range instrument, stating that “in their 1939 catalogue, Boosey & Hawkes advertised a 4 Octave (C to C) instrument but few, if any, of these monsters were built before the outbreak of War in 1939 stopped all musical manufacture in England & the Writer never saw or heard one of these ‘in action.’” Another piece of historical trivia both illuminates and obscures the issue: although the Lulu opera was premiered in 1937, the Lulu Symphonic Suite (also written for four-octave vibraphone) was premiered two years earlier, in 1935, prior to Berg’s passing. As it happens, the first time Berg heard any of his material for Lulu performed was via the 1935 radio broadcast of the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing the Symphonic Suite in London. Although no evidence has yet been found to confirm this theory, it is entirely possible that a representative of the BBC Symphony Orchestra approached the builders at Boosey & Hawkes (both entities being based in London) to commission the construction of a custom-made four-octave vibraphone for use in Berg’s work, and that after refining the design for a few years, Boosey & Hawkes made their four-octave model publicly available in 1939.

Despite the mixed critical reception of Lulu, it appeared that the vibraphone itself had gained the interest of modern musicians and was poised to survive the death of Berg, its earliest proponent, and become an international sensation. In 1937 (after the premiere of the Lulu opera), Premier added a three and a half-octave (F-C) model to its line of vibraphones. Also in 1937, an ambitious young Deagan employee named Clair Omar Musser (who would later leave Deagan to start his own company) developed the model 55 “Imperial” vibraphone, which boasted several improvements to form and function which would influence vibraphone design for decades to come. The next year saw two more additions to Deagan’s catalog, the two and a half-octave (C-F) model 30-W and the three-octave (F-F) model 35 “Mercury.”

However, as the 1977 letter to the editor pointed out, the advent of World War II had a profound impact on the trajectory of the arts, including instrument design and production. Several instrument manufacturers had to significantly restrict or altogether halt production: in addition to the halt of Boosey & Hawkes’ operations (and the subsequent loss of their Ajax four-octave vibraphone), Premier’s three and a half-octave vibraphone was discontinued in 1938, and the Leedy drum division at Conn was completely disrupted. Even Deagan, the strongest firm at the time, was greatly affected by the war: all of Deagan’s pre-1937 vibraphone models were discontinued by 1939, and the rest (including the model 45 “Diana,” which Deagan attempted to introduce in 1940) were discontinued in 1942 after America entered the war. No new vibraphones were made until 1945, when Deagan reintroduced the “Mercury” as the model 35 “Rondo.”

Composers and performers were similarly affected, and any momentum the vibraphone had gained by its inclusion in Berg’s work was completely lost. The lone bright spot during this period was Olivier Messiaen’s Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine, written in 1944 for women’s choir, piano, ondes martenot, vibraphone, strings, and percussion. Today, most modern ensembles opt to use a four-octave vibraphone, as the part extends past F6 during three separate sections of the work (reaching as high as Bb6). However, unlike Berg, Messiaen’s intent was not to make use of an extended-range instrument; the vibraphone part does not extend below C4 (middle C), thus requiring only a three-octave (C4-C7) instrument. At the time of the piece’s composition, three such instruments (Deagan’s model 144 “Radio,” Premier’s “New Sterling,” and Ludwig’s “Vibra-Celeste”) would have been around for a number of years and were likely available to the composer. Unfortunately, no other composers joined Messiaen in writing for the instrument, and any hope of establishing the four-octave range as the standard was lost with Berg’s death and Boosey & Hawkes’ decision to not resume production of their Ajax four-octave vibraphone after the conclusion of World War II.

Selected Bibliography for Further Research

Blackshere, Lawrence Douglas. Considerations on the Concerto Pour Marimba et Vibraphone (Un Seul Executant). Thesis (M.A. in Music)—Calif. State College, Hayward, 1971.

Cheesman, Brian S. “An Introductory Guide to Vibraphone: Four Idiomatic Practices and a Survey of Pedagogical Material and Solo Literature.” DMA diss. University of Southern Mississippi, 2012.

Culhane, John. “Henry Schluter: Vibraharp originator. Bell expert rings up 60 years.” Percussionist 4/2 (December 1965): p. 4 [reprinted from the Chicago Daily News of March 27, 1965].

Daniels, Sean E. “Vibraphone Concerti: Published and Unpublished Works from 1947-2001.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2004.

Friedman, David. Vibraphone Technique: Dampening and Pedaling. Boston: Berklee Press Publications, 1973.

Graiser, Brian. "Concerto No. 1 ('Lulu') for Four-Octave Vibraphone: A Guide to the World’s First Concerto for Extended-Range Vibraphone," supplemental document to the DMA project "Creating the First Concerto for Four-Octave Vibraphone," University of Cincinnati, 2015.

Holloway, Michael. Letter to the Editor, Percussionist 14, no. 5 (Winter 1977): 104-105.

Howland, Harold. “The Vibraphone: A Summary of Historical Observations with a Catalog of Selected Solo and Small-Ensemble Literature.” Percussionist [Part 1] 14, no. 3 (Summer 1977): 77-93; [Part 2] 51/1 (Fall 1977): 20-40.

Howland, Harold. “The Vibraphone: A Summary of Historical Observations with a Catalog of Selected Solo and Small-Ensemble Literature.” MA diss., Catholic University, 1976.

Meyer, Jacqueline. “Early History and Development of the Vibes.” Percussionist 13, no. 2 (Winter 1976): 38-47.

Meyer, Jacqueline. The History and Development of the Vibes. Thesis (M.A.)- Indiana State University, 1973.

Siwe, Thomas. Percussion Solo Literature. Champaign: Media, 1998.

Smith, Joshua D. “Extended Performance Techniques and Compositional Style in the Solo Concert Vibraphone Music of Christopher Deane.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 2008.