THE CELESTIAL CROWN
​piano

There's so much to respond to in the music of George Crumb.  I've known Makrokosmos for over twenty years, and hear something new each time I return to the piece.  In my mind, I remember how the work is a truly encyclopedic compendium of wonderful, imaginative piano playing techniques, the Zodiac signs, the title referencing the Bartok Mikrokosmos, and that famous Chopin quote at the end.  Upon revisiting the piece once again to write my response to part six in January of 2022 for Nic Gerpe's Makrokosmos 50 project, only a few weeks before Crumb's passing, what I noticed was the song which is whistled, "Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown," a hymn particularly in Appalachia, the use of the piano to imitate an "Appalachian Harp" in the piece, and the possible connection of both of these elements to George Crumb's roots as a composer originally from West Virginia.  These were elements about the work I had not appreciated before.  My work is a sort of re-arrangement or variation on pieces of "Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown."  Crumb has the pianist whistle the chorus, so I primarily work with the verse, sometimes in its original form, sometimes inverted or augmented, and always harmonized by a chord shape derived from the opening, harp-like chord in Crumb's own work.  
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