Tedious Piece
George Crumb composed his
Eleven Echoes of Autumn 1965
especially for the Aeolian Players. I
do not recall a more tedious piece
of music. At one point it was like
listening to snips of the soundtrack
of the film Sundays and Cybelle.
The first five minutes were adequate;
the rest was tedious. One
feels, also, that if a piece of music is
dedicated to a performing group,
the group should at least commit
this piece of music to memory-the
endless movement of sheet music
was a distraction, as was the body
English clacking of the pianist's
buttons on the Steinway, the inaudible
talk (at one point into the
flute), and so on. One would have
been as satisfied by Salvador Dali
being released with a .45 calibre
machine gun on the School of
Athens in Cabell. Why not?
Multi-mode!
Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber
Symphony No. 1, Opus 9, arranged
for violin, cello, flute, clarinet and
piano by Schoenberg's pupil Anton
Webern was the closest thing to
Mozart the whole evening.
