The score calls for effects that are “like ghostly bells,” “distant,” or invisible (because they emanate from off-stage). The lingering “after-voices” of each initial sound are persistent reminders that the sound is continuing over time. In this work, however, the composer uses the echo as an especially potent symbol: the echo calls attention to the existence of sound in time and in space. Resonant, ringing sonorities are everywhere in George Crumb’s music. As is so often the case in Crumb’s music, the familiar begins to seem strange, and vice versa. In this unfamiliar context – where players move about the stage in a quasi-ritualized fashion – one also grows intensely aware of the spatial relationships of the performers who remain fixed in their stage positions. For concert audiences, the effect is further enhanced by the visual choreography of the performance. The aural relationships of the various parts are thereby enriched by the shifting spatial locations of the players. Six wind players stand in a row along the rear right of the stage, where they play tuned antique cymbals, and they exit when the mandolin procession begins. ![]() Near the close of the movement, the mandolinist stands at center stage, and as he plays, moves to the front-left edge of the stage, eventually disappearing into the wings. In the first movement, Frozen Time, three of the six percussionists process from the far-right apron of the stage to the rear left-hand corner. The score contains diagrams for the location of the performers in each of the four movements, as well as the path each processional is to follow across the concert platform. Crumb asks performers to enter and exit the performance space in later compositions, but Echoes is by far the most elaborate instance of his experiments with spatial, theatrical effects. Crumb “wanted to express in musical terms the various qualities of metaphysical and psychological time.” Careful study of the score reveals that the composition explores – one might even say it deconstructs – aspects of time, space, memory, and the act of musical performance.Įach movement includes processionals, during which small groups of players move in carefully choreographed step-patterns around the stage. The composer has emphasized that, despite its title, Echoes of Time and the River has no connection with Thomas Wolfe’s novel and that it is not programmatic. Few other orchestral compositions, however, present such a dazzling array of challenges for conductor, players, and listeners alike. ![]() Aspects of the work are anticipated in earlier instrumental literature, from the timbral and spatial effects in Gabrieli and Berlioz to those in Mahler, Debussy, and Bartók. ![]() The piece was commissioned by the University of Chicago for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1968, before the composer had turned forty. George Crumb’s oeuvre includes many startlingly original achievements, but his 1967 orchestra work, Echoes of Time and the River, is surely among his most daring creations. George Crumb: Echoes of Time and the River
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