Temporality and Texture in the Performance of George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening

Abstract

Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III, 1974) for two amplified pianos and percussion by George Crumb is one of the first works written after 1945 to use the same ensemble inaugurated by Béla Bartók in his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. The aim of this article is to examine the relationship between temporality and texture in the performance of Music for a Summer Evening. The highly diversified textures in terms of colour and density, as well as the tempo palette offer performers a high degree of freedom in their interpretation. Seven recorded performances of the work, covering a period of more than forty years (1975–2017) are compared according to the methods I developed during previous studies (Lalitte, Philippe. 2015. Analyser l’interprétation de la musique du XXe siècle. Une analyse d’interprétations enregistrées des Dix pièces pour quintette à vent de György Ligeti. Paris: Hermann; Lalitte, Philippe. 2018. “L’interprétation de Sopiana pour flûte, piano et bande de François-Bernard Mâche.” In François-Bernard Mâche: Le poète et le savant face à l’univers sonore, edited by Geneviève Mathon and Marta Grabocz, 299–318. Paris: Hermann; Lalitte, Philippe, and Vincent Grepel. 2017. “Prêt-à-porter ou coupe sur mesure? Liberté et contraintes dans l’interprétation de la Sequenza III de Berio.” Filigrane 22.). The article sheds light on issues such as the fidelity to the score, the singularity of some interpretations, the impact of texture on the temporality of performance, and the potential effect of the number of musicians in the ensemble.

Keywords:

• George Crumb
• Makrokosmos
• Music for a Summer Evening
• Performance
• Temporality
• Tempo
• Texture

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For instance, see Cook (2013); Cook and Everist (2001); Cook and Pettengill (2013); Davies (2001); Dunsby (1995); Fabian (2016); Godlovitch (1998); Kivy (1995); Lalitte (2015, 2018); Lawson and Stowell (2012); Rink (1995, 2002); Taruskin (1995); and Walls (2003).

2 For instance, see Alessandrini (2007); Bayley and Heyde (2017); Folio and Brinkman (2007); Heaton (2012); Lalitte (2015, 2018); Lalitte and Grepel (2017); Michel (2009); Orning (2012); and Redgate (2007).

3 Makrokosmos (Twelve Fantasy-Pieces after the Zodiac) for amplified piano, Volume I (1972), Volume II (1973), Music for a Summer Evening for two amplified pianos and percussion (1974) (Volume III), and Celestial Mechanics [Volume IV] for four hands amplified piano (1979).

4 Ivar Mikhashoff, Aki Takahashi, Stephen and Frieda Manes (pianos), and Jan Williams and Lynn Harbold (percussion) premiered the whole cycle on 12 June 1980 in Buffalo, New York.

5 In ‘II–4’, the Ronan numeral ‘II’ refers to Volume II (out of four) of the Makrokosmos and ‘4’ refers to the particular piece within this volume. I will apply this system of reference throughout this study.

6 ‘And in the nights the heavy earth is falling from all the stars down into loneliness. We are all falling. And yet there is One who holds this falling endlessly gently in his hands’.

7 The epigraphs of movements III and V had already served as a source of inspiration for Makrokosmos I (see score notes, Crumb 1974).

8 Makrokosmos III follows the same type of progression as the one that leads from the beginning to the end of Makrokosmos I (from ‘Primeval Sounds/Genesis I/Cancer’) to (‘Spiral Galaxy/Aquarius’) and from the beginning to the end of Makrokosmos II (from ‘The Morning Music/Genesis II/Cancer’ to ‘Agnus Dei/Capricorn’, with a score in the form of a peace mark, the emblem generally associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, anti-war activities, and counterculture movement of the 1960s).

9 The piano part was recorded on 26–27 June 2017 at the Oizumi Bunkamura studio (Shibuya City, Tokyo, Japan) and the percussion part on 24–25 July 2017 at the Weinberg Studio (Kefermarkt, Austria). Matthias Kronsteiner did the editing and mastering.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philippe Lalitte

Philippe Lalitte is Professor of Musicology at Sorbonne University, member of the Institute of Research in Musicology (CNRS UMR8223, Paris) and associate member of the Laboratory for Research on Learning and Development (CNR UMR5022, Dijon). He also works as Scientific Advisor for the Department of Research Evaluation at the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES). His research focuses on analysis, performance, and cognition of the twentieth- and twenty first century art music. He explores new methods of analysis using computer technologies (sound representations and audio descriptors), and attempts to transfer some theoretical tools from cognitive sciences and semiotics to the structural analysis of music. He has published numerous articles in national and international journals, edited six books and authored Analyser l’interprétation de la musique du XX^e siècle (Hermann, 2015).