Crumb goes Macro

Synopsis

For the ideal performance of Makrokosmos II: Twelve fantasy pieces after the Zodiac, by American composer George Crumb, one should perhaps be outdoors in a remote clearing under a crystalline canopy of stars.

For the record, the premiere performance of Crumb’s suite for amplified piano took place indoors at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on today’s date in 1974, at a recital of new American works given by pianist Robert Miller.

In his program notes, Miller offered these words about Crumb’s Makrokosmos II:

“Each of the 12 pieces is associated with a different sign of the Zodiac, and is written out in a very precise notation, but the music will at times sound … almost improvisatory. The piano has become an orchestra unto itself. There is an enormously wide range of sound, timbre, touch, dynamics, etc.”

One use of quotation by Crumb is beautifully subtle. In the eleventh piece, Litany of the Galactic Bells, the opening music — a shimmering bell effect which recalls the coronation scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov — gradually subsides and moves almost imperceptibly into a short excerpt from Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. The effect is somewhat like the changing colors of a prism.”

Music Played in Today's Program

George Crumb (1929-2022): Makrokosmos No. 2 (Laurie Hudicek, piano) Furious Artisans 6805

On This Day

Births

• 1833 - Russian composer Alexander Borodin, in St. Petersburg (see Julian date: Oct 31)

Deaths

• 1948 - Italian opera composer Umberto Giordano, 81, in Milan

• 1966 - American composer Quincy Porter, 69, in Bethany, Connecticut

• 1972 - Czech-born American composer Rudolph Friml, 92, in Los Angeles

• 1976 - American composer Walter Piston, 82, in Belmont, Massachusetts

• 2013 - British composer Sir John Tavener, 69, in in Child Okeford, Dorset

Premieres

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 139 (Wohl dem, der Sich auf Seinen Gott) performed on the 23rd Sunday after Trinity as part of Bach’s second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25)

• 1866 - Delibes: ballet La Source, at the Paris Opéra

• 1881 - Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Theodore Thomas, with Madeleine Schiller the soloist

• 1888 - Tchaikovsky: symphonic fantasy overture Hamlet, in Moscow (Gregorian date: Nov. 24)

• 1931 - Rachmaninoff: Oriental Sketch for solo piano, in New York City, by the composer

• 1943 - William Schumann: Symphony No. 5 (Symphony for Strings), in Boston

• 1973 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 14, in Leningrad, by the Beethoven Quartet

• 1974 - Crumb: Makrokosmos II for amplified piano, in New York

• 2002 - David Del Tredici: Grand Trio in New York City at the 92nd Street Y by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio

Others

• 1738 - Handel completes Part II (Moses’ Song) of his oratorio Israel in Egypt (see Julian date: November 1)