George CRUMB (b. 1929).
Complete Crumb Edition, Volume 4
Zeitgeist
Portent
Two Harlequins
Monochord
Day of the Comet
The Realm of Morpheus
Reverberations
Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)
Nocturnal Sounds (The Awakening)
Wanderer-Fantasy
The Advent
Myth
Music of the Starry Night
 Susan Grace, Alice Rybak,
(Pianos)
John Kinzie, David Colson (Percussion)
rec Colorado College, Aug 2000,
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Timbre and sound colours are (nearly) everything for George Crumb. He has
pioneered elaborate developments in live electronics. His Dark Angels
string quartet has become justly famous, and is now often played.
Zeitgeist (1987) for two pianos has one piece based on 6-tone chordal
structures, another whimsical and unpredictable, a third needing rapid
oscillations of the fingertip on a low Bb string, then a study on polyrhythmic
clusters. The last, constructed from the echoing phenomenon, is preceded
by The Realm of Morpheus, which is notated graphically.
Makrokosmos III (Music for a Summer Evening) is a major
work of approx. 35 mins, for which the pianos are amplified and often set
in a halo of evocative sounds, the odd-numbered movements on a large scale,
with cosmic and philosophical programmes. They are separated by dreamlike
intermezzi, a wistful Wanderer Fantasy mostly for the pianos alone,
and Myth for the percussionists.
Crumb's music here is always easily accessible and often relatively simple
- even perhaps simplistic in essence - its main constituent colouration from
a wide sound palette of exotic instruments.
An earlier version of Makrokosmos III is
reviewed
.
See also an S&H report of
George Crumb's recent
appearance in London, in which he demonstrated the versatility
of a very small drum kit, see - - the second half of David Starobin's recital
was of contemporary pieces, mostly commissioned by and composed for Starobin
including Mundus Canis, four ingenious pieces by George Crumb composed
as portraits of family dogs. George Crumb himself contributed with
precision and aplomb on a portable kit of percussion instruments, including
maracas and a small gong lowered into a bucket of water. This unusual duo
worked well, and the pieces could stand by themselves and enjoy a good performing
life.
Mundus Canis is available on BRIDGE 9095
Peter Grahame Woolf
