Déserts

Déserts (1950–1954) is a piece by Edgard Varèse for 14 winds (brass and woodwinds), 5 percussion players, 1 piano, and electronic tape. The piece is scored for 2 flutes (both doubling piccolo), 2 clarinets (one doubling E-flat clarinet and one doubling bass clarinet), 2 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, and a percussion section of 5 players:

1. timpani, vibraphone, cymbals, tenor drum, claves
2. glockenspiel, snare, field, and tenor drums, 2 timbales or tom-toms, cymbals, cencerro, tambourine, Chinese blocks
3. bass drums, cymbals, field and tenor drums, cencerro, guiro, claves, tambourine, chimes
4. vibraphone, 3 gongs, lathes, guiro, tambourine
5. xylophone, chinese blocks, wooden drums, guiro, claves, maracas, lathes

Percussion instruments are exploited for their resonant potential, rather than used solely as accompaniment. According to Varèse, the title of the piece regards "not only physical deserts of sand, sea, mountains, and snow, outer space, deserted city streets… but also distant inner space… where man is alone in a world of mystery and essential solitude."

All those that people traverse or may traverse: physical deserts, on the earth, in the sea, in the sky, of sand, of snow, of interstellar spaces or of great cities, but also those of the human spirit, of that distant inner space no telescope can reach, where one is alone.

— Varèse (1950)