Totentanz for Marimba Duo - arrangement based on a piece by Franz Liszt by Virginia Alcarria, 2 5-octave marimbas; advanced

Do you hear it? It is the trumpet that announces the final judgment. Few will be saved, and many will be condemned to eternal flames. The Beast has been invoked, the tritone has been sung and the dance of the dead has just begun. There is only one way you can be saved... to dance with the dead until the stars fall to earth. 

Totentanz, composed by Franz Liszt, is one of the most complicated works for piano solo. The resistance required, the difficulty and the duration make this piece a real challenge for pianists, and very few have been able to interpret it correctly. 

This arrangement, made for two marimba players, makes the interpretation of this piece more accessible, but don’t be fooled, as the fierceness of the piece and the rapport that must exist between the performers does not detract from that myth of difficulty that precedes the original score.

Virginia Alcarria