Customer Reviews

Complete Crumb Edition, Vol. 8; Makrokosmos Books I & II, Otherwordly Resonances

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The first book of Makrokosmos was my introduction to Crumb's music and despite hearing about half of his entire output now, it still remains my favorite. The title is closely related and pratcially ripped off from Bartok's Mikrokosmos, but they're nothing alike. Mikrokosmos is a set of progressive studies for children to learn piano. These are most certainly not exercises. They're much more like Debussy's Preludes -- 2 books of 12 brutally hard pieces that have short descriptions by the composer.

I once read a comment by Michael Walsh (music critic for Time Magazine) claiming that Makrokosmos is better if performed by a man. In general, I think he's right -- the shouting and speaking from the pianist in the various pieces just carry more gravitas with a deeper voice. I would also add the caveat that it should be an English-speaking pianist, too -- the recording of Bojan Gorisek on Audiophile Classics (if it's out there anymore) has its distractions thanks to Gorisek's heavy Slavic accent.

Since the recording here has an American man playing, and it's superb. It's not good because he's a man and he's American, but because the whole package is here. The recording quality and phrasing is excellent -- Mr. Shannon paces things perfectly so that you can hear and savor the resoanance that comes from inside the piano. The nutty piano techniques show their edge amazingly well -- for example, in the Phantom Gondolier movement, you can just imagine how hard Mr. Shannon scrapes his thimble-capped fingers on the strings inside the piano to produce the hair-raising sounds. Book 2, which I like less, also comes up a winner. It feels a little recycled after going through the 35 minutes of Book 1, but how often can one hear a coherent piece that demonstrates the effect of placing paper on strings of the piano?

My one gripe is that Mr. Shannon is not a strong vocalist. In some parts of both books, the score asks for "shouting" from the pianist, and he comes up quite short. In the Crucifixus movement of Book 1, his shout of "Christe!" is hardly the jolting climax from the depths of a deathly silence it's supposed to be. And this happens on several occasions. His whistling isn't bad, though.

Otherwordly Resonances seems quaint after getting through the string-plucking and knocking in Makrokosmos. It's pleasant enough, but it definitely takes second fiddle to the headliner on this CD. Which is a shame, because the performers of this work, Quattro Mani, do amazing things with the Makrokosmos III and IV on other Crumb CDs.

I wish Mr. Crumb would have made more comments about what techniques he actually used in his works. Without a score to look at (and they're HUGE, awkward, and expensive), how on earth is anyone supposed to know what we're listening to? The sounds generated from a prepared piano are just as interesting as learning how to prepare the piano in the first place.

I still think this CD is fabulous. It shows Elliott Carter's garbled messes from the same period have some worthy competition.

There is this deadly stereotype about patrons of "new music" that suggests that they are more left brained than right brained. I hear people claim that the music is nothing but math, new music patrons don't get emotional responses from their music, etc. That is absolute bull. When listening to Makrokosmos, I feel the same emotion that I would while listening to Chopin, Bach, Tchaikovsky, or anyone else that I like. It is music with incredibly identifiable elements to tie it all together. There are people who think that, because some of these elements aren't obvious and at the foreground, the music is bad. It is not. It is among the most emotionally engaging music that there is. If you don't like it, okay. I cannot tell you how to feel about music. However, to say that the music is "bad" is, more or less, completely ignorant.

On the recording in question, Robert Shannon does an absolutely top notch job. One of my favorite albums. My only complaint comes from the vocal passages (like in the Phantom Gondolier). The execution sounds a little cheesy, but I guess you can't help how your voice sounds. Otherwise, this is one of my favorite albums.

Makrokosmos is not music, it is academic dribble that disguises itself under a artistic pseudo-rationale. Anyone who has ever sat at the piano and just thumped out random clusters of notes is in effect doing what George Crumb has done with this so-called "composition." There are no themes, no movement, no development, and most notably of all there is no structure of any kind. Exploring novel timbres by using the instrument in new and provocative ways is, I think, a noble pursuit, but to just indiscriminately bombard the listener with irrelevant sound and try justify it with some type of spurious justification like the presentation of emotional textures that explore the "possibilities of piano idiom" is ridiculous. If Crumb had any real ability as a composer he would take these new timbres and utilize them into the formation of proper melodies or at least present them in a way that illustrated a well developed structure and progression of ideas. Let me say this, if you truly want to hear/understand (on a more intuitive level) why Crumb is a bad composer, do the following: Listen to Makrokosmos and then listen to any late work of Arnold Schoenberg (Schoenberg: Piano Works). Both composers ignore the typical harmonic conventions of western music, but the latter one employs a actual compositional intellect. If, however, you do like Crumb's music then perhaps you might also like the Thai Elephant Orchestra.