GEORGE CRUMB 80 | PORTRAIT

The American composer George Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia on 24 October 1929. This year, he celebrates his eightieth birthday. To mark the occasion, we will be presenting the complete Makrokosmos cycle, a monumental four-part work for piano that rates as one of the most outstanding musical works of the twentieth century.

Ever since his childhood, nature has been a major source of inspiration in the composer’s life. This is reflected in his music. George Crumb transports the listener into transcendental and mythical-magical worlds suffused with symbols and universal ideas, earthly realities and cosmic speculation. He produces “world music” in the medieval tradition of the “musica mundana”. His compositions draw on mythology, religion, the peace movement and green movement, the Vietnam protest movement, natural phenomena, mythical spirits, astronomy and astrology.

Makrokosmos I and II (1972/73), both scored for a solo amplified piano, consist of twelve highly complex fantasy pieces based on the zodiac. In 1974, Crumb composed Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) for two amplified pianos and an impressive array of percussion instruments from various cultures. It was followed in 1979 by the fourth part Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV). With this suite of majestic “cosmic” dances, Crumb returns once more to the medium of a solo amplified piano, but this time scored for four hands.

The recently formed Berlin Piano Percussion will perform the complete Makrokosmos cycle with great dedication, precision, energy and individuality over the course of one evening. Its members, Prodromos Symeonidis, Ya-ou Xie, Sawami Kiyoshi, Friedemann Werzlau and Matthias Buchheim, are all leading international soloists, as well as performers who perfectly complement each other musically.