Willamette Week review of 2 Crumbs

Thought you'd all like to see Grant Menzies' review of 2 Crumbs.....

2 Crumbs (Grant Menzies WW 1/26/05)

The echo as conduit for memory—and, as such, for the wordless dramas conjured by sound—haunts all the music of American composer George Crumb. Crumb has written that being born and bred in an Appalachian river valley, surrounded by the clicks and rustles of nature, sensitized his ear to the rich qualities of echoed sounds.

As we heard at the Old Church last week, courtesy of Third Angle New Music Ensemble, Crumb’s sonic vocabulary echoes in his son, composer David Crumb, as well. The differences that exist between father and son made this concert a rare and exquisite event, particularly as the evening included the world premiere of David Crumb’s Improvisations on an English Folk Tune, for violin, cello, clarinet, flute and piano.

Crumb père’s influence on serious music of the 20th century cannot be overstated: His use of every possible sound color and texture, including the cries of whales, in what he calls "the service of a spiritual impulse," opened ears and doors to countless young composers and performers. Third Angle wisely programmed works tracing that arc, from Crumb’s weirdly poignant Four Nocturnes of 1963 to his 2002 song cycle for soprano and percussion ensemble, Unto the Hills (Appalachian Songs of Sadness, Yearning and Innocence).

Violinist Ron Blessinger and pianist Susan Smith phrased, patted and plucked through the Nocturnes, floating harmonic colors tinted just this side of chance: This is what wind chimes would sound like if there really were a god on the breeze. In Unto the Hills, sweet-toned soprano Diane Reich, pianist Jeffrey Meyer and the massed forces of the Central Washington University Percussion Ensemble made poetry of such folk tunes as "Poor Wayfaring Stranger," "All the Pretty Little Horses," and "Black, Black, Black is the Color," the latter a mini-opera with its multiple marimba tremolos and prepared piano effects.

David Crumb fully matches his father’s intensity but overmasters him in emotional terms. His September Elegy for violin and piano (with Blessinger and Smith), inspired by 9/11, conjured sweet triadic lullabies and single string notes as endless as distance. His improvisations on the English folk tune Scarborough Fair, however, pulled out every emotional stop, with the familiar melody visible, invisible and visible again against the turbid textures of strings, winds and piano, like a bird reflected in the imperfect mirror of a lake.