Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) – George Crumb
whales
____
we say that birds sing, despite the
fact that it is their ordinary language,
whales, upon our hearing them, seem
also to be singing
when we sing we alter our voices to
fit pitches and volume and rhythms
intentionally, otherwise we’re talking
what, then, is music, is bird song
music, whale song, is “Vox Balaenae“,
a composition by George Crumb, from
1971
if so, what do we mean by music, which
used to be, a long time ago it appears
now, melodic, recurrent and rhythmic
in “Vox Balaenae“, where is the music
we used to think of as music, though
harmonious it has the elements rather
of language, communication, instead
of the ordered outlay of composition
it is, however, indeed Classically laid,
with movements and everything, even
a set of variations, though interestingly
attended on either side, these, by, as it
were, book ends, a prologue and an
epilogue, literary terms, to reinforce
the idea of narration, there are three
movements
Prologue: Vocalise (…for the beginning of time)
Variations on Sea-Time [Sea Theme]
Archeozoic
Proterozoic
Paleozoic
Mesozoic
Cenozoic
Epilogue: Sea-Nocturne (…for the end of time)
a blue light in the performance suggests
a marine environment, masks dehumanize,
render everything “[a]rcheozoic”, extended
technique, unusual use of the instruments,
are instructions stated in the score
for a while I’ve been saying that prose is
just bad poetry, for a while I’ve been trying
to make poetry out of prose
how are we doing
Richard
Richibi's Weblog 