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And a forest of percussion instruments, including shimmering tam-tam; curt wood blocks; and drums, both crisp and booming.

“They had a huge tam-tam in one room, and I said, ‘What about that, can I rent that?’” he recalled about the period shortly before the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas led the piece in 1972.

First, a prowling tuba and eerie whooshes of tam-tam and cymbals evoke Hamm’s solitude.

Featuring a tambourine, triangle, and tam-tam, the suite’s second movement attempted to capture the vitality of black vernacular dance with syncopation, unusual chromatic lines and colorful effects in the strings.

A large tam-tam, for instance, was brushed not struck.