科研成果详情

George Crumb is a twentieth century American experimentalism composer. During Crumb's career, he wrote a few pieces for violin and piano before 1976. Three selected chamber works of Crumb composed between 1966 and 1976 are Eleven Echoes of Autumn (Echoes I) (1966), Four Nocturnes (Night Music II) (1964) and Dream Sequence (Images II) (1976). In these pieces, Crumb utilizes both western and non-western conventional instruments including Japanese temple bells and the Thai buffalo bell. Through them, he discovers the volume of the sonority, the color of the timbre and the way of the performance. The center focus in this three selected works is the quiet mood, imagination and reflection of life. He attempts to convey the sound between reality and fantasy by the use of the instrument. In each piece, he indicates different concepts and expects individual performers to portray the shape of the music to fulfill the space. Crumb not only explores the timbre of the instrument but also extends the performance from on-stage to offstage. Although, this way of performance was unusual and strange in the 1960s or 1970s, today it sounds not too peculiar to the audience. These pieces are full of challenge for the performer, yet have not been performed as often as other pieces such as Black Angels (1970). In exploring these issues, this research will examine the challenges of performance and the historical and cultural forces that characterized these works.