by Lauren Vogel Weiss

Raymond B. Helble, perhaps best known for his marimba compositions, died on October 17, 2022 at the age of 73. Diagnosed with bile duct cancer in October 2020, he received a liver transplant ten months later, but unfortunately, his cancer returned this past summer. He is survived by his wife, Carol Helble, former assistant band director and percussion specialist at Lebanon (Missouri) High School.

Born in Teaneck, New Jersey on February 3, 1949, Raymond Helble began composing at the age of ten and conducting at the age of twelve. He continued his musical studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His composition teachers included Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, and Joseph Schwantner, and he studied conducting with Willis Page and Walter Hendl.

World-renowned marimba soloist and PAS Hall of Fame member Leigh Howard Stevens met Helble during Stevens’ first year at Eastman in 1971. “For a few weeks, [Helble] was the substitute teacher in my Philosophy 101 class. When I found out that he was actually a composer, we started discussing my plan to develop a contemporary repertoire for marimba that used the new techniques I was developing. A few weeks later, I found a scrawled ink manuscript under my dorm room door that looked like it had been penned by a mad man. While it was difficult to decipher, it used all the techniques I had shown him: one-handed rolls, ‘reverse stickings,’ and polyrhythms between the hands and between the mallets. This became the first of his ‘Preludes for Marimba’ (No’s. 1, 2, 3).” Stevens commissioned a second set of three preludes in the mid-1970s and a third set in the early 1980s. The final three preludes were completed in the 1990s, bringing the total to a dozen marimba preludes.

Stevens ended his New York City debut at Town Hall, during PASIC ’79, with the world premiere of Helble’s “Toccata Fantasy in E-flat minor,” one of the most difficult pieces written for marimba at that time. In the program notes, the composer wrote, “This work may initially fool the listener in that the work is very accessible in terms of its traditional harmonic language. However, the real complexity of the piece is its architecture. The listener will perhaps notice that the form is an unusual — but happy — marriage of a sonata and chaccone. A few lapidary motifs and an almost textbook harmonic simplicity form the basis of the most extended and involved of marimba pieces.”

Helble composed many other works for Stevens. His five-movement “Duo Concertante for Marimba and Violin” was originally premiered at Eastman in 1975, and in 1981, Stevens (along with violinist Guillermo Figueroa) performed a revised version at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. “I premiered his ‘Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra’ with the Denver Symphony Orchestra in May 1981,” Stevens says. “He also wrote ‘Grand Fantasy for Marimba’ in 1977, as well as numerous works commissioned by other marimba players and various ensembles.”

Although Helble was a composer for most of his adult life, he also worked for The New York Times from 1990–99, supervising statistics and demographics.

Other Helble compositions for percussion include “Dragon of Wyckham” (for solo marimba and concert band), “Grand Duo Concertante” (for two five-octave marimbas), “Movement for Marimba and Harpsichord,” “Passacaglia” (for solo marimba), “Passacaglia for Percussion” (an ensemble for ten players), “Prelude and Rondo alla marcia” (commissioned by Dr. Brian West and the Texas Christian University Percussion Ensemble for their PASIC 2008 concert), “SilverWood” (a duo sonata for marimba and flute), “Sonata Brevis” (for solo vibraphone), “Three Etudes for Five Timpani,” and two books of “The Well-Tempered Marimbist.”

Gordon Stout, Professor Emeritus at Ithaca College and a member of the PAS Hall of Fame, remembered Helble from Eastman. “Although we were there at the same time, I did not know Ray very closely on a personal level, but I did know his music intimately because I copied the manuscripts of some of his early marimba pieces. In 2009, his dear wife Carol invited me to perform at her annual Mid-Missouri percussion festival in Lebanon. While driving me back to the airport at the end of the trip, they left the highway suddenly, and five minutes later surprised me by arriving in Stoutland, Missouri! Carol was his caretaker for the past several years and she and Ray were a wonderful couple.

“Raymond Helble will be remembered as an astute and sophisticated composer,” Stout adds. “And Carol will be known as the love of his life, and a wonderful soulmate.”

Author’s note: I am honored that Raymond Helble wrote “Theme with Six Variations” for me. It was an example of his musical humor, arranging his beautiful theme “à la Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, and Dvorak.” This piece is a perfect example of his uncanny ability to imitate other composer’s styles, as he did in “Grand Fantasy.” Thank you, Mr. Helble, for your amazing contributions to marimba literature!