GEORGE CRUMB: Variazioni; Otherworldly Resonances; Night of the Four Moons; The Sleeper; 3 Early Songs – Quattro Mani/ Jan DeGaetani, mezzo-soprano/ Gilbert Kalish, piano/ The Aeolian Chamber Players/ Odense Symphony Orchestra/ Paul Mann, conductor – Bridge 9253, 74:05 ***** [Distr. by Albany]:
We now move along to volume 11 in Bridge’s superb George Crumb edition. I have always been a big fan of this composer’s music—even in the bad ol’ days of the 1970s his was a voice of reason that stood out as genuine creativity when compared to the mass of drudgery produced by the academia at the time. So it is good that posterity will have a creditable record of the man’s work when all is said and done.
I was delighted no end to see that this recording of Crumb’s Night of the Four Moons was not a new one, but instead the 1974 Columbia Records issue that was nominated for a Grammy, and coupled at the time with Vox balaenae. The performance is as exotically atmospheric as any I can imagine, and what surprised me the most was the sonic quality of that old Columbia analog LP, here loving updated to show us what was really on that tape. The sense of spacing is spectacular, and there simply will not be a better recording to come along than this one. I do not think that Bridge has released Vox balaenae yet—I do hope they will not record it again but license the flip side of this old Columbia, as I have been waiting for years to get my hands on it. [If I recall correctly, it was also issued as a SQ quadraphonic LP…Ed.]
The 1959 Variazione is a wonderful set of variations for orchestra, here newly recorded in what must be a definitive performance. It is a remarkable thing about this serial work that you can really hear the variations develop, so adept is Crumb at presenting even atonal music in intelligent and meaningful fashion. Otherworldly Resonances has been recorded by Bridge in an earlier release, in its Book 1 guise. This is for two amplified pianos that show to a great extent the composer’s penchant for color and contrast.
The last two pieces are gems, featuring the always-reliable and most of the time amazing Jan DeGaetani and partner Gilbert Kalish. The Three Early Songs are just that, more conventional than what we usually hear from Crumb, but still hinting of things to come in these poems of Robert Southey and Sara Teasdale. My goodness, hearing the last of the three, “Wind Elegy”, almost sounds like Hugo Wolf! Finally, The Sleeper is a single song written for the duo in 1984, and matching to a t the remarkable and evocative sounds present in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same title.
The dates on these recordings vary, and some are live, but all have wonderful sound and performances unmatched. This is an essential issue in this series, not to be missed.
— Steven Ritter
