Tag: George Crumb

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Nic Gerpe – The Makrokosmos 50 Project

A new recording of the March 2022 performance by pianist Nic Gerpe of Makrokosmos Volume I, by George Crumb is now available for digital download. In 1972 George Crumb composed his Makrokosmos Volume I, a major 20th Century work for solo piano. To mark the 50th anniversary of this innovative piece, Nic Gerpe performed all twelve sections in concert on March 15, 2022. As Gerpe states on the website: “To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of its composition, I have commissioned twelve composers to each write a response to one movement of Crumb’s original epic piece, to create a brand new celestial cycle.” These new pieces are also available for download. The composers selected for this project were: Juhi Bansal, Viet Cuong, Eric Guinivan, Julie Herndon, Vera Ivanova, Gilda Lyons, Alex Miller, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, Thomas Osborne, Timothy Peterson, and Gernot Wolfgang.

George Crumb was an influential composer of piano music of the 20th century, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968. Makrokosmos Volume I is one of his most popular pieces. The use of amplification and a variety of extended techniques puts this work at the cutting edge of contemporary piano performance. Nic Gerpe has been a leading proponent in Los Angeles of the music of George Crumb for some time. In November 2019, Crumb’s 90 birthday was observed by a concert by Gerpe that included A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 as well as Makrokosmos Volume I. The March 2022 concert was intended to mark the 50th anniversary of Makrokosmos, but also became a commemoration of the composer, who had died just a few weeks earlier.

Even a casual hearing of the Makrokosmos suite is immediately understood by the listener to be breaking new ground. Crumb once explained that with Makrokosmos he intended to write “an all-inclusive technical work for piano [using] all conceivable techniques.” The result is music that thoroughly defies conventional expectations for solo piano while remaining both accessible and compelling.

Makrokosmos, Volume I is subtitled Twelve Fantasy-Pieces after the Zodiac for Amplified Piano. This is organized in three sections of four short pieces, comprising about a half hour of music. Each piece is roughly based on the constellations of the zodiac but include evocative subtitles such as “Spiral Galaxy”, “Music of Shadows” or “The Abyss of Time”. The music is generally dark and other-worldly, employing such techniques as strumming the piano strings in the lower registers, plucking single strings or knocking on the piano case. All of this requires much adroit movement by the performer in and around the piano. Gerpe was equal to the challenge – there are no awkward pauses or hesitations in the flow of the sound. When notes were played conventionally from the keyboard, solitary phrases and quiet, slender melodies were heard. Although far removed from the familiar, Makrokosmos is powerfully expressive.

The companion pieces by twelve contemporary composers are fine examples of just how influential Mikrokosmos and the music George Crumb has become in the last 50 years. These new works are all similar in length and style to the Crumb originals and express a wide variety of feelings from engaging and bright to somber and frightening. The extended piano techniques were also used to full advantage in many of the new pieces, validating the distinctive expressive potential realized by Crumb. Perhaps the closest approach to the original Makrokosmos was Karkata, by Vera Ivanova, who employed the same radical imbalance between the keyboard and extended techniques. The result was a complex blend of plucked strings and keyboard notes that compared favorably with Crumb’s more intense pieces.

Other pieces, like Alexander Elliott Miller’s The Celestial Crown consisted of more conventional gestures with quiet, solitary keyboard notes. Miller’s beautifully introspective melody line evoked a distant and lonely feel. Crumbling, by Fernanda Aoki Navarro incorporated lots of movement and crossing phrases in the keyboard that were filled with energy and abstraction. Aries, by Timothy Peterson began with a quiet tinkle of high notes from the keyboard followed by solemn chords and soft phrases in the middle register that invoked a mysterious and magical feeling. Deep chords then increased the tension and gave way to a turbulent finish. The innovative Crumb vocabulary for the amplified piano is highly original, yet was easily absorbed by each of the contributing contemporary composers.

Overall, this new Makrokosmos 50 recording combines the brilliant performances by Nic Gerpe of the piano music of George Crumb together with powerful examples of the influence this piece has had on contemporary composers. The Makrokosmos 50 project stands as a serious exploration of one of the landmark innovations in solo piano music.

Makrokosmos 50 is available at Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music.





by Paul Muller
CDs, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Experimental Music, File Under?

George Crumb (1929-2022)

We are saddened to learn of the loss of George Crumb, who passed away on February 6, 2022 at the age of 92. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the composer was one of the most important musical figures of his generation, both as a creator and, for many years, as a professor at University of Pennsylvania. Considered by his students to be a supportive and gifted teacher, he mentored a number of composers who went on to major careers.

 

Crumb composed a large catalog of works, and many of them have become touchstones of the contemporary repertoire.  The bracing amplified string quartet Black Angels (1970) decried the atrocities of the Vietnam War; from that same year, the poignant and colorful Ancient Voices of Children is a standout among a host of eloquent settings of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poetry. He often wrote series of pieces; Madrigals from the 1960s for soprano and mixed ensemble, Makrokosmos from the 1970s for amplified piano, and American Songbooks from the 2000s for male and female voices and mixed ensemble are among them. Occasional pieces, including a few depicting his beloved mischievous dogs and a gloss on Thelonious Monk’s “‘Round Midnight,” were witty and equally memorable.

Photo: Rob Starobin

From the outset of his career, Crumb referenced a different set of influences than many of his relative peers, with Bartôk, Debussy, Cowell, Cage, and the burgeoning movement of postmodern Europeans informing him as he struck out on his own path. Crumb was a tremendously imaginative orchestrator, in particular expanding the role and number of percussion instruments in chamber music. The look of his scores, which were frequently graphic in design, was also distinctive. Crumb’s music provided chamber groups, especially new music ensembles, with repertoire that stretched them technically and encouraged them to listen carefully to find the character and balance of the distinctive sound combinations he supplied. His work gave generations of other emerging composers permission to use an expansive set of resources and think outside the box. 


In 2021, a recent piano cycle (2015-2020) in two books, Metamorphoses, in which each piece evoked a work of visual art from a disparate collection of painters, was released on CD by Bridge Records as the twentieth volume of their George Crumb Edition. The composer was involved in the recordings, active until near the end of his extraordinary life. 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical, Review

ensemble: Périphérie – Morris, MN, 9/23/14

Peripherie3
(image source ensemble: Périphérie)

A common theme in my reviews is that new music is what and where you make it. ensemble: Périphérie ascribes to the same philosophy. The group, founded in 2010 by composers Luke Dahn and Joseph Dangerfield, contains performers from all over the United States; they get together a few times a year for a week of intense rehearsals and a short tour. Make no mistake, though; while the rehearsal time may be brief, these musicians are skilled and the performances are high-quality.

The group started its Fall 2014 tour at the University of Minnesota Morris, where pianist Ann DuHamel is on the faculty. (Full disclosure: So am I.) The concert opened with Karim Al-Zand‘s work Hollows and Dells (2010) for viola and piano, played by violist Stephen Fine and DuHamel. The work, cast in three movements, is based on the composer’s recollections of attending an English-style boarding school, and features paraphrases and arrangements of stacking songs, hymn tunes, and a reel that can only be described as a moto perpetuo. It is a fun and exciting work, and was performed with a high level of fun by Fine and DuHamel.

The second piece, Tomasz Skweres‘s Direkt (2006), is a setting of Psalm 14 for soprano, flute, and cello. One of the longer pieces on the program, it taxes the skills of all performers, with substantial use of extended techniques for the players. Soprano Michelle Crouch ably negotiated the intense vocal line, which required both control and power, and flutist Rebecca Ashe and cellist Kumhee Lee tackled their difficult parts with aplomb.

Co-founder and co-artistic director Dangerfield was represented by Broken Obelisk (2013). Originally for saxophone and piano, this version was played by clarinetist Yasmin Flores and DuHamel. The work was inspired by Barnett Newman’s sculpture of the same name. This effective piece showcases the sound of the instruments beautifully, and uses modes and little bluesy licks to great effect.

If it’s Minnesota, you’ll find some Libby Larsen. Flores, Fine, and DuHamel presented two movements of Black Birds, Red Hills (1987). This work, which draws inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of New Mexico, provided a solid close to the first half of the program.

After intermission, co-founder and co-artistic director Dahn’s Confessions of St. Augustine (2009, rev. 2014) was performed by Crouch, Flores and DuHamel. Originally for soprano and orchestra, this adaptation for soprano, piano and clarinet used two texts by the 4th-century theologian for a work that was by turns austere, intense, and expansive. Dahl did a fine job condensing the orchestral textures for the reduced forces; the interplay between the players signified a great familiarity with each other.

For any other group, a program this ambitious would have been sufficient for a full evening of exciting and interesting music. In this case, however, the organization also presented George Crumb‘s Vox Balaenae (1971), which counts as a venerable war-horse in new music circles. For this performance, flutist Ashe and cellist Lee were joined by Dangerfield on piano. The trio handled the extended techniques with grace and style, and gave the work a solid, powerful interpretation.

For a group that only rehearses and performs in short bursts, ensemble: Périphérie (which draws its name from a quote by Henri Dutilleux) shows a maturity and skill that should serve as an inspiration to other ensembles. The group played Carnegie Hall in October 2013 to outstanding reviews, and their devotion to quality performances of challenging music should resonate with other composers and performers. Here’s hoping they come to your town sometime soon.

by Wes Flinn