Madrigals, Book III : Work information

Composers
George (Henry) Crumb ( Music, Images,)
Performed by
Elizabeth Suderberg (Soprano), David Schrader (Percussion), Pamela Vokolek (Harp), Contemporary Group, University of Washington, Robert Suderberg (Conductor)

This work

Work name
Madrigals, Book III
Work number
n/a
Key
n/a
Genre
A
Composed
1969-01-01 02:00:00

This recording

Label
Vox
Producer
n/a
Engineer
n/a
Recording date
n/a

The Composers

George (Henry) Crumb

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, George Crumb attended the universities of Illinois and Michigan before teaching at Colorado and Pennsylvania, where he remained until retiring in 1995.  His orchestral work Echoes of Time and the River (1967) won him the Pulitzer prize and he has written many choral pieces inspired by the writings of Federico Garcia Lorca.

Crumb's use of extended performance techniques leads to his music being at once sonorous and disjointed.  He cites Béla Bartók as a major influence, and shares with him an uncomfortable sense of the macabre.  His Makrokosmos piano collections can be seen as picking up Bartók's thread, and as with Crumb's string quartet Black Angels he specifies that the acoustic instruments be amplified.  The esoteric titles and themes of Crumb's work (a movement of Black Angels is entitled 'Night of the Electric Insects') are echoed in esoteric compositional techniques.  Quotation, parody and dreamlike mood invite comparisons with Luciano Berio - both composers are hugely devoted to the work of Gustav Mahler. 

Track listing

  • I. La noche canta desnuda sobre los puentes de marzo 1:50 min
  • II. Quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas 2:06 min
  • III. Nana, niño, nana del caballo grande que no quiso el agua 4:13 min