George Crumb: Zeitgeist, tableaux vivants for two amplified pianos

Crumb - Zitgeist

George Crumb è uno dei compositori che ho sempre amato. È uno dei pochi contemporanei che trovo emozionanti. Uno dei pochi che non scrivono solo ‘esercizi’ o ‘studi’.

Di questo brano ho già parlato, proprio qui, più o meno 9 anni fa. Ma allora non c’era la diffusione offerta dal libro di facce e non c’erano i video del tubo (non come adesso, almeno). Così ne approfitto per rimettere qualcosa, questa volta con il video dell’esecuzione e note dell’autore.

George Crumb, Zeitgeist, Six Tableaux for Two Amplified Pianos (Book I) (1987, rev. 1989)

I. Portent – Molto moderato, il ritmo ben marcato
II. Two Harlequins – Vivace, molto capriccioso
III. Monochord – Lentamente, misterioso
IV. Day of the Comet – Prestissimo
V. The Realm of Morpheus (“. . . the inner eye of dreams”)
Piano I: Lentamente quasi lontano, sognante
Piano II: Adagio sospeso, misterioso
VI. Reverberations – Molto moderato, il ritmo ben marcato

Alexander Ghindin & Boris Berezovsky Amplified pianos

Notes from the author:

Zeitgeist (Six Tableaux for Two Amplified Pianos, Book I) was composed in 1987. The work was commissioned by the European piano-duo team of Peter Degenhardt and Fuat Kent, who subsequently gave the premiere performance at the Charles Ives Festival in Duisburg, Germany on January 17, 1988. Zeitgeist was extensively revised after this initial performance.

For a German-speaking person, the expression “Zeitgeist” has a certain portentous and almost mystical significance, which is somewhat diluted in our English equivalent: “spirit of the time.”

The title seemed to me especially appropriate since the work does, I feel, touch on various concerns which permeate our late-twentieth century musical sensibility. Among these, I would cite: the quest for a new kind of musical primitivism: (a “morning of the world” vision of the elemental forms and forces of nature once again finding resonance in our music); an obsession with more minimalistic (or at least, more simple and direct) modes of expression; the desire to reconcile and synthesize the rich heritage of our classical Western music with the wonderfully vibrant ethnic and classical musics of the non-Western world; and, finally, our intense involvement with acoustical phenomena and the bewitching appeal of timbre as a potentially structural element.

In many of its aspects—compositional technique, exploitation of “extended-piano” resources, and emphasis on poetic content—Zeitgeist draws heavily from my earlier piano compositions, especially the larger works of my Makrokosmos cycle (Music for a Summer Evening [1974] for two amplified pianos and percussion, and Celestial Mechanics [1979J for amplified piano, four-hands).

The opening movement of Zeitgeist, entitled Portent, is based primarily on six-tone chordal structures and a rhythmically incisive thematic element. The music offers extreme contrasts in register and dynamics. A very characteristic sound in the piece is a mysterious glissando effect achieved by sliding a glass tumbler along the strings of the piano while the keys are being struck.

The second movement—Two Harlequins—is extremely vivacious and whimsical. The music is full of mercurial changes of mood and comical non sequiturs. Although this piece is played entirely on the keyboard, an echoing ambiance resonates throughout.

Monochord (which in the score is notated in a symbolic circular manner) is based entirely on the first 15 overtones of a low B-flat. A continuous droning sound (produced alternately by the two pianists) underlies the whole piece. This uncanny effect, produced by a rapid oscillating movement of the fingertip in direct contact with the string, results in a veritable rainbow of partial tones. In addition, paper strips placed over the lower ten strings of each piano produce an almost sizzling effect.

The title of the fourth movement —Day of the Comet— was suggested by the recent advent of Halley’s comet (the previous visitation was commemorated by H. G. Wells in his science fiction novel of the same title). The piece, played at prestissimo tempo and consisting of polyrhythmic bands of chromatic clusters, is volatile, yet strangely immaterial.
Perhaps Debussy’s Feux d’artifice (Preludes, Book II) is the spiritual progenitor of this genre of composition.

The fifth movement —The Realm of Morpheus— is like Monochord symbolically notated. The bent staves take on the perceptible configuration of the human eye (“…the inner eye of dreams”). Each of the two pianists plays independently, and the combined musics express something shadowy and ill-defined—like the mysterious subliminal images which appear in dreams.
Disembodied fragments of an Appalachian folk-song (“The Riddle”) emerge and recede.

The concluding movement of the work —Reverberations— recalls the principal thematic and harmonic elements of the first movement. This piece is constructed in its entirety on the “echoing phenomenon”—that most ancient of musical devices.

[George Crumb]

Crumb: Zeitgeist

George Crumb completed the final revisions for Zeitgeist (Six Tableaux for Two Amplified Pianos, Book I) in 1989. The work is approximately twenty-eight minutes in duration. It was commissioned by the Degenhardt-Kent piano duet. The first performance took place at the Charles Ives Festival in Duisburg, Germany in 1988.

After that. the composer reworked the piece to his liking. Like the rest of the Crumb catalog, this work includes enigmatic sounds and titles for the movements, such as “The Realm of Morpheus (” … the inner eye of dreams”).” The extended techniques involves the players reaching into the piano to attack the strings directly in order to achieve specific timbres that would not otherwise be available from without.

Like many of the composer’s earlier works, elements of the work suggest a coherent and exotic belief system or world view in all its eccentricities. Like his Makrokosmos series for amplified piano(s) in the 1970s, the listener is often drawn to the poetic allusions as potential clues to unlocking the arcane secrets of the composer’s mind.

The sound suggests some very concrete ideology or mystic purpose behind his clear yet unique musical formations. Webern had his naturalist Catholicism; Crumb’s point of departure is anybody’s guess. Part of its enduring interest is its lack of posturing. Scriabin, for example, reveled in the role of the eccentric, mystic genius, and played it up. Satie did something similar, though in a more modern and self-stylized way that was grounded in the Rosicrucians. It was less of a romantic cliché than was the hackneyed persona of his Russian peer.

Crumb has all the interior components of a similarly mystical artistic personality but none of the mannerisms or apparent affiliations. He is the anchor of his own spirit, and nothing else resembles his art, with the exception of a plethora of imitators.

When listening to a work such as Zeitgeist, being a world famous artist does not sound preoccupying to the composer. There is compassion to his music that does reflect back upon him as a leader of any wounded aesthetic congregation, as if he does not regard himself as the vital part of an equation consisting of listener, performer, and composer.

Above all, Crumb’s music is American. More precisely, it is nocturnal, pastoral Americana of the highest caliber, revealing a deeply compassionate, inquisitive, and independent imagination. A work such as Zeitgeist does not have more in common with the work of most composers from the United States than it does with the Europeans, with the exception of Charles Ives.

There is little in the scores themselves that verify this connection, but both demonstrate a relationship to the land that is difficult to pin down but easily recognized. Crumb uses fewer indigenous references than Ives, though the Zeitgeist’s fifth movement contains bits of an Appalachian folk song. It could be said that both composers felt less bound to music history than other composers; neither man sounds determined to either break with tradition or serve it.

The music simply is, and that is a rare quality. Even if the listener accepts these rather speculative conjectures, questions remain. Why Zeitgeist? What is the deeper meaning of its movements’ individual titles? It is the apparent importance of these questions that proves that the music is engaging. Many listeners are rarely satisfied to know a piece works. The rigor of Boulez’s syntax has everything to do with why the music works, and one can detect what is working by recognizing its nature, if not its particulars. Crumb’s music remains a mystery, a beautiful one, even with repeated listening.
[All Music Guide]

Excerpts: I have already published a post about the 3rd mov. (Monochord) here. Now go listen to the 4th and 6th.

George Crumb – Zeitgeist (Six Tableaux for Two Amplified Pianos, Book I)

Eleven Echoes of Autumn

George Crumb – Eleven Echoes of Autumn (1966) for violin, alto flute, clarinet, and piano.

Eleven Echoes of Autumn was composed during the spring of 1966 for the Aeolian Chamber Players (on commission from Bowdoin College). The eleven pieces constituting the work are performed without interruption:

  1. Echo 1. Fantastico
  2. Echo 2. Languidamente, quasi lontano (“hauntingly”)
  3. Echo 3. Prestissimo
  4. Echo 4. Con bravura
  5. Echo 5. Cadenza I (for Alto Flute)
  6. Echo 6. Cadenza II (for Violin)
  7. Echo 7. Cadenza III (for Clarinet)
  8. Echo 8. Feroce, violento
  9. Echo 9. Serenamente, quasi lontano (“hauntingly”)
  10. Echo 10. Senza misura (“gently undulating”)
  11. Echo 11. Adagio (“like a prayer”)

Each of the echoes exploits certain timbral possibilities of the instruments. For example, echo 1 (for piano alone) is based entirely on the 5th partial harmonic, ehco 2 on violin harmonics in combination with 7th partial harmonics produced on the piano (by drawing a piece of hard rubber along the strings). A delicate aura of sympathetic vibrations emerges in echoes 3 and 4, produced in the latter case by alto flute and clarinet playing into the piano (close to the strings). At the conclusion of the work the violinist achieves a mournful, fragile timbre by playing with the bow hair completely slack.

The most important generative element of Eleven Echoes is the “bell motif” — a quintuplet figure based on the whole-tone interval — which is heard at the beginning of the work. This diatonic figure appears in a variety of rhythmic guises, and frequently in a highly chromatic context.

Each of the eleven pieces has its own expressive character, at times overlaid by quasi-obbligato music of contrasting character, e.g., the “wind music” of the alto flute and clarinet in echo 2 or the “distant mandolin music” of the violin in echo 3. The larger expressive curve of the work is arch-like: a gradual growth of intensity to a climactic point (echo 8), followed by a gradual collapse.

Although Eleven Echoes has certain programmatic implications for the composer, it is enough for the listener to infer the significance of the motto-quote from Federico García Lorca: “… y los arcos rotos donde sufre el tiempo” (“… and the broken arches where time suffers”). These words are softly intoned as a preface to each of the three cadenza (echoes 5-7) and the image “broken arches” is represented visually in the notation of the music which underlies the cadenzas.

Il collasso del tempo e gli ultimi echi

Le ultime due parti di Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II), di George Crumb ripulite, per quanto possibile, dalle impurità del vecchio vinile. Si intitolano Collapse of Time e Last Echoes of Time.

The most free and fantastic movement is the portentous Collapse of Time. Like the celebrated amphibians of Aristophanes, the string players croak out the nonsense syllables “Krek-tu-dai! Krek-tu-dai!” while the xylophone taps out the name of the composer in Morse code. As the movement proceeds and the underlying pulse falls away, the music heads off into a wide range of special effects – quasi-improvised fragments passed around among the various soloists, notated in circular patterns in the score. The descent into the solitude of the finale, Last Echoes of Time, comes at first as a relief and relaxation from all the foregoing; once the listener is convinced of the retrospective nature of these last pages, he can begin to explore more securely the implications in these echoes of all that has gone before. [Robert McMahan]

George Crumb – from Echoes of Time and the River, Collapse of Time / Last Echoes of Time

Il ricordo del tempo

La seconda parte di Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II), di George Crumb. Anche questa “ripulita” dalle impurità del vecchio vinile.

The second movement, Remembrance of Time, begins with the most distant and delicate sounds imaginable (piano, percussion, harp), echoed by a phrase from García Lorca (“the broken arches where time suffers”). Fragments of joyful music erupt from various wind and brass players on stage and off, and the commotion eventually gives way to a kind of Ivesian reminiscence, evoked by serene string harmonics: “Were You There When They Crucified the Lord?”

George Crumb – from Echoes of Time and the River, Remembrance of Time

Echoes of Time and the River

Nel 1970, mentre l’Europa era in pieno strutturalismo e in America impazzavano minimalismo e grafismi vari, George Crumb scriveva questo Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II), per orchestra, un brano fortemente emozionale in quattro parti. Il titolo reca l’indicazione Echoes II perché precedentemente Crumb aveva composto Echoes of Autumn (1965).

Qui vi presentiamo il primo movimento Frozen Time che

features a collage of mysterious and muted textures in overlapping 7/8 metric patterns. After a time, three percussionists make their way ritualistically across the stage intoning the motto of the state of West Virginia: “Montani semper liberi?” (Mountaineers are always free); the “ironic” question mark has been added by the composer. The music swells to an intense fff in the middle section with glissandos in all the string parts. As if in answer, the mandolinist exits playing and whispering the same motto darkly as he disappears off stage
[from program notes]

Il brano è stato recuperato da un vecchio vinile molto rovinato. L’ho pulito per quanto possibile, senza intaccare l’incisione, ma la provenienza si sente.

George Crumb – from Echoes of Time and the River, Frozen Time

Monochord

Monochord è una parte di Zeitgeist di George Crumb, una suite per due pianoforti amplificati composta nel 1988, quindi 10 anni dopo l’ultimo libro del Makrokosmos da cui eredita la ricerca sonora fatta di suoni delicati prodotti manipolando direttamente le corde del pianoforte e ascoltabili grazie all’amplificazione.

Registrazione effettuata a Lecce nel 2007. Esecutori Andrea Rebaudengo, Carlo Palese.

George Crumb Intervista

Un’intervista con George Crumb su YouTube, registrata nel novembre 2007.

Anna Sale speaks to Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and West Virginia native George Crumb. She spoke to him in November 2007 when he was back in his home state to be inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. Russ Barbour is the video editor and co-producer of this piece. It first aired Dec. 20, 2007, on the program “Outlook” on West Virginia PBS.

A Little Suite for Christmas

George Crumb‘s reputation as a composer of hauntingly beautiful scores has made him one of the most frequently performed composers in today’s musical world. From Los Angeles to Moscow, and from Scandinavia to South America, festivals devoted to the music of George Crumb have sprung up like wildflowers.

George Crumb wrote A Little Suite for Christmas for piano in 1980. Approximately 15 min length, this perfect piece of music is so minimal and so energetic at the same time. The main idea of this work is dialogue between sound and silence, which is the fully legitimate member of George Crumb’s music. The long pauses between intensive moments of piano blasting can prepare the listener very well to conceive all musical ideas, and the whole impression is really stunning.

  • George Crumb – A Little Suite for Christmas for piano – Aleksandra Listova

An Idyll for the Misbegotten

George Crumb – An Idyll for the Misbegotten (1986)
per flauto amplificato e 3 percussioni
Kristen Halay flauto, Brian Scott, W. Sean Wagoner, Tracy Freeze percussioni

I feel that ‘misbegotten’ [trad: figlio illegittimo, bastardo] well describes the fateful and melancholy predicament of the species homo sapiens at the present moment in time. Mankind has become ever more ‘illegitimate’ in the natural world of plants and animals. The ancient sense of brotherhood with all life-forms (so poignantly expressed in the poetry of St. Francis of Assisi) has gradually and relentlessly eroded, and consequently we find ourselves monarchs of a dying world. We share the fervent hope that humankind will embrace anew nature’s ‘moral imperative.’
[George Crumb]

Crumb suggests, “impractically,” that the music be “heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August.” (Crumb) Over a slow bass drum tremolo, the flute begins its haunting melody, which over the course of the piece includes quotations of Claude Debussy’s solo flute piece Syrinx and spoken verse by the eighth-century Chinese poet Ssu-K’ung Shu: “The moon goes down. There are shivering birds and withering grasses.” Far from a traditionally peaceful idyll, the music’s energy and dynamics gradually rise and fall, with a sense of desolation throughout.