George Crumb: Varizioni/Echoes of Time and the River
Just the notion of an album of George Crumb orchestral works drew me to this recording. Crumb’s pieces seem so exclusively suited for small ensembles, it’s difficult to imagine the heavy mass of an orchestra occupying the sparse nooks and crannies of his scores. I can just picture the concert hall swallowing up his pieces’ signature textures.
It’s not surprising to discover Crumb has so far only written five pieces for orchestra, two of which were recorded by the Louisville Orchestra. Although Crumb employs the entire orchestra for the Varizioni, his economic orchestration still makes the piece feel largely like chamber music.
He makes few odd demands on the orchestra, and the piece, with its 12-tone theme, feels relatively conventional. That’s not to say the discordant bursts of strings and brass are at all tonal — this score is thoroughly modern. Compared to Black Angels or Ancient Voices for Children, Varizioni sounds like, well, music. (For readers unfamiliar with Crumb’s work, the background music for the TV show Lost is essentially Crumb made palatable for prime time.)
Still, Crumb manages to give the orchestra a workout, and the piece can be as thrilling as it is intense.
Echoes of Time and the River, on the other hand, does use extended techniques, which require a custom seating plan, vocalizations by the players and processions across the stage.
From the percussive chimes which open the piece, the alien textures for which Crumb is known feel familiar. On recording, each part can be heard clearly, but in the concert hall, I wonder how well this score would translate.
As with Varizioni, the economic use of the orchestra makes the piece more like chamber music, and Crumb wisely uses its full force in very sparing doses. Most of Echo of Time and the River is spread out over percussion and piano, but when the string and brass come in, their presence is dense and overpowering.
The orchestra offers a vast sonic palette with which composers draw their music, but its size can be a burden as well. Crumb, however, has a clear idea of how his pieces sound, and he’s keenly aware that his sense of timbre doesn’t use every orchestral color available.
Rather, he employs the orchestra to further his own set of tonal colors, and the resulting works don’t lose the sense of intimacy and immediacy of his chamber works.