George Crumb 70th Birthday Album

George Crumb (Composer), Thomas Conlin (Conductor), David Starobin (Performer), Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra), George Crumb (Performer), Ann Crumb (Performer), Susan Narucki (Performer), Joseph Alessi (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: David Starobin, George Crumb, Ann Crumb, Susan Narucki, Joseph Alessi
• Orchestra: Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Thomas Conlin
• Composer: George Crumb
• Audio CD (November 16, 1999)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bridge
• ASIN: B00002EPMQ
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #287,195 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Bridge celebrates George Crumb's 70th birthday with a cross-section of his music, including youthful songs and a delightfully humorous depiction of the dogs in his life for David Starobin's expressive guitar and Crumb's percussion accompaniment. The centerpiece though, is the large-scale Star-Child, a 1977 commission from Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic. Massive in ambition and in its expansive aural vistas, Crumb says it traces a "progression from darkness (despair) to light (or joy and spiritual realization)." Have no fears of New Age doodling; Crumb's music is tough, beginning with a quiet, dark slow movement that becomes an expressive duet for soprano, and a trombone that comments on the "Libera me" text with stentorian eruptions, muted sighs, and spoken parody of the soprano line. The central movement depicts the Apocalypse; the closing movement brings peace via luminous strings surrounded by a halo of handbells and a male chorus's hushed prayer of deliverance. An important work; an important disc. --Dan Davis

Product Description
Three works by George Crumb, the American master composer.

Star-Child, the 2001 Grammy Winner for Best Contemporary Composition. This work was considered "unrecordable" by Boulez as it calls for multiple orchestras to perform simultaneously with different conductors. Through digital technology, Bridge has provided the first studio recording of this work ever. Thomas Conlin leads the Warsaw Philharmonic to extraordinary heights in Crumb's apocalyptic masterpiece.

Mundus Canis (A Dog's World)is a series of short works for guitar and percussion. David Starobin and George Crumb play these 5 works, based on the Crumb family dogs. Crumb and Starobin have since taken this piece on the road for a series of performances both across the USA and around the world.

George Crumb calls his Three Early Songs "the sins of his youth. These songs are certainly far from sinful, though stylistically far different from his later work. Crumb performs them on the piano, while his daughter, Ann Crumb, sings the vocal parts.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A major work finally gets it's recording debut., February 4, 2000

By	Frederick Lauritzen (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Ever since I read a review of the concert where George Crumb's Star Child was premiered I've been hoping that a recording would be forthcoming. In a sense, this is your typical Crumb work, with it's wild vocalise, it's unusual instrumental effects, it's mixture of tonal and atonal elements, and, most of all, it's aura of ritual and mystery. It also breaks new ground in it's scope (a large orchestra used sparingly) and layering of different musics. I particularly love the duet between the soprano and trombone ("Voices Crying in the Wilderness" indeed!) and the quietly estatic closing, with the strings soaring into their highest range. The guitar work shows a lighter and humorous side of Crumb's art and are a delight, as are the early songs (although there is only a hint of the composer's later style buried in them). Anyone interested in comtemporary music that is both innovative and deeply expressive should check into this disk.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive orchestral work from George Crumb, December 11, 1999

By	Marc Salz (Philadelphia, Pa. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What a perfect way to celebrate the 70th birthday of one of the twentieth century's great composers than with the release of "Star Child".The work starts with quiet string sounds similar to Charles Ives's "the Unanswered Question" and builds to an intense climax as in Crumb's own "Black Angels".The four conductors required for performing the piece make this an unlikely work to appear on standard orchestral programs.This CD is therefore an important documentation of a moving musical experience. Crumb's recent "Mundus Canis" is also heard and shows that the composer is still going strong after a brief creative slowing down in the '80s. This work features the composer performing on percussion with guitarist David Starobin. In addition to being an amusing musical portrait of Crumb's past family pets, the work features new explorations of guitar sounds similar to some of the earlier piano compositions of the '70s. This is a valuable addition to American classical recordings that for the most part contain Minimalist or serial related compositions

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Masterpiece, November 23, 2007

By	Leonardo Giannini - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

George Crumb's Star-Child is a very powerful music, to be ranked between
the best ever composed in the United States of America. Without favor, the Dies Irae can be matched in the same level with those composed by
Mozart or Verdi.