Volume 8 Issue 7 - April 2003

add only exceptional pieces to music
history's long list of works. Crumb
acquits this responsibility admirably.
In 1962, at the age of thirty-three, he
produced his first work combinin~
unprecedented extensions of ~ononty
using numerological structures for
organizing harmony, rhythm, . a.nd
form. Sometimes the sononties
come from virtuosic stretching of
familiar instruments and voice. Other
times they come from unusual instrumentation
played in unusual
ways: sitar, electric bass, carillon,
and more.
A second assumed responsibility
·is never standing still. Crumb aims
to make each work unique. The
forces range from works for solo instrumentalists
to the mammoth Star­
Child (Vollline 3, Bridge 9095) with
its multiple orchestras, chorus and
children's chorus, trombone and solo
soprano. From the first measures
you know that you are entering a new
sonic world.
The best place to start in this superb
set from Bridge (manufactured
and distributed in Canada by Verge
Musicwww.vergemusic.com) is the
recent Volume 6 (Bridge 9127),
which has a good sampling of
Crumb's wares. You get the Pulitzer-winning
Echoes of Time and the
River Gnomic Variations featuring
a sol~ piano played like nothing
you've heard before, the ~a~toral
Drone for organ and the mt1mate
Four Nocturnes for violin and piano.
A special bonus is the inclusion of
the first compact disc reissue of the
1971 performance of Lux Aetema by
the late Jan De Gaetani for whom
Crumb wrote much of his vocal
music. Then I would go to Volume 2
(Bridge 9069), which features two ?f
the compositions that we can hear m
concert this month: Quest, a chamber
piece composed for. guitarist
David Starobin; and a return to
Crumb's passion for the poetry of
. Federico Garcia Lorca, Federico's
Little Songs For Children.
I eagerly await the next installment
in this ambitious project. Volume 7
is due out in June of this year and
will include Crumb's take on the horrors
of the Viemam war, Black Angels
for amplified string quartet.
Phil Ehrensaft
Concert Note: Students of the Glenn
Gould School perform well-known
works by George Crumb including
Black Angels on April 11 at 7:30 at
the Royal Conservatory of Music.
New Music Concerts presents "The
Unknown Crumb " (including Quest
and Federico's Little Songs) on April
13 at Glenn Gould Studio.
100 Years of Dance
Orchestre symphonique de
Quebec; Yoav Talmi
Analekta FL 2 3156
The OSQ reveal themselves as hale
and hearty as they enter the second
century since their founding, responding
readily to Yoav Talmi's
gracefully melded phrasings and s~lr
tie nuances of tempo and dynamics.
Eight st:lections from the exceedingly
familiar Slavonic Danc~s by
Dvorak provide the first 30 mmutes
of this album. Dvorak's presence
returns in the concluding 15 minutes
as well, as orchestrator of five of six
Hungarian Dances by his proponent,
Brahms.
Sandwiched between these 19th
century stalwarts are a trio of popular
modern selections, beginning
with Bart6k's 1917 Rumanian Folk
Dances. Quebec is well represented
by Claude Champagne's triedand-true
Danse villageoise and
Fran~ois Dompierre's recent Les
Diableries for violin and orchestra.
The flashy Dompierre work, with its
echoes of the same Quebecois fiddling
traditions that inform Champagne's
work, is incisively performed
by OSQ concertmaster Darren
Lowe.
The recorded sound achieves both
great depth and clarity, with the violins
distributed to the left and right in
the 19th century manner. As enjoyable
as these performances may be,
I find it frustrating that this narrowly
focused sequence of dance tracks
gives little sense of what thi~ vene~able
orchestra might achieve m
weightier repertoire. .
Daniel Foley
Concert Note: Yoav Talmi leads the
Quebec Symphony Orchestra in some
weightier fare at Roy Thomson Hall
April 1 - May 7 2003
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