This exceptional sixth volume in Bridge’s ongoing George Crumb Edition includes the only available recording of Echoes of Time and the River, one of the composer’s rare orchestral works. The reason for its absence from the concert hall is easy to understand, given its requirements for a huge variety of instruments, not to mention players who need to be willing to get up and move around from one movement to the next, sometimes in whole sections. Crumb didn’t subtitle it “Four Processionals for Orchestra” for nothing! Of course, unlike so many trendy imitators, there’s method in Crumb’s madness, the justification being the haunting, evocative sounds and textures he conjures from his mobile forces, and the direct emotional impact the music makes in performance. Speaking of which, this one is extraordinary: virtuosic and poetic by turns, fabulously well recorded, and alone worth the price of the disc. Once again Thomas Conlin and his Polish forces do Crumb proud.
The couplings, though, are equally important. Legendary mezzo Jan DeGaetani joins The Penn Contemporary Players in a classic recording of Lux Aeterna (licensed from Sony). Robert Shannon turns in a brilliant performance of the texturally fascinating Gnomic Variations. He’s joined by the no less masterful Gregory Fulkerson in Four Nocturnes for violin and piano, a work that despite its brevity remains one of Crumb’s very richest creations in terms of sheer color and sonic variety. Finally, there’s the premiere recording of Pastoral Drone, Crumb’s only work for solo organ. Owing partly to its harmonic simplicity (the entire work takes place over a sustained fourth in the pedals), partly to the fact that you can’t really play the organ from the inside out, it comes off as the most traditional sounding music on the disc, which makes its comparative neglect all the more unaccountable.
Each installment in this enthralling series brings new revelations, and this one is certainly no exception. Indeed, the combination of premiere CD recordings of Pastoral Drone and Echoes of Time and the River, as well as the return of Jan DeGaetani’s benchmark performance of Lux Aeterna, bids fair to make this latest release the most important and interesting of all. But who’s counting?
