Based on observations of these trends, the two parameters that seem to demand continual reevaluation and expansion are form and timbre, yet the application of these parameters has also shifted over time. The outliers have come to shape the retrospectively-crafted musicological narrative arc, a story that relies on experimentation, novelty, and change. ĭolce Suono Trio – Mimi Stillman, flute, Yumi Kendall, cello, Charles Abramovic, piano – perfoms George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) at Haverford College, PA (October, 2007).Throughout the history of Western art music, large-scale developmental trends have continually been defined by the composers who broke the rules, so to speak. In concert performance, the last figure is to be played “in pantomime” (to suggest a diminuendo beyond the threshold of hearing!) for recorded performances, the figure is played as a “fade-out”. The concluding gesture of the work is a gradually dying series of repetitions of a 10-note figure. In composing the Sea-Nocturne I wanted to suggest “a larger rhythm of nature” and a sense of suspension in time. The piece is couched in the “luminous” tonality of B major and there are shimmering sounds of antique cymbals (played alternately by the cellist and flutist). The concluding Sea-Nocturne (“serene, pure, transfigured”) is an elaboration of the Sea-Theme. The emergence of man in the Cenozoic era is symbolized by a partial restatement of the Zarathustra reference. The following sequence of variations begins with the haunting sea-gull cries of the Archezoic (“timeless, inchoate”) and, gradually increasing in intensity, reaches a strident climax in the Cenozoic (“dramatic, with a feeling of destiny”). The Sea-Theme (“solemn, with calm majesty”) is presented by the cello (in harmonics), accompanied by dark, fateful chords of strummed piano strings. The conclusion of the cadenza is announced by a parody of the opening measures of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra. This combination of instrumental and vocal sound produces an eerie, surreal timbre, not unlike the sounds of the humpback whale. The opening Vocalise (marked in the score: “wildly fantastic, grotesque”) is a kind of cadenza for the flutist, who simultaneously plays his instrument and sings into it. The form of Voice of the Whale is a simple three-part design, consisting of a prologue, a set of variations named after the geological eras, and an epilogue. I have also suggested that the work be performed under deep-blue stage lighting. The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature (i.e. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask (or visor-mask). The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale), composed in 1971 for the New York Camerata, is scored for flute, cello and piano (all amplified in concert performance). Introduction text by George Crumb himself: Three masked players: electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano.įirst performed by the New York Camerata at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
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