These two sets of 12 pieces each, dating from 1972-3, are classics in establishing Crumb’s personal extended piano technique. He has created a new vocabulary based on playing inside the piano directly on the strings, including strummed chords and harmonics, and discreet use of quotation. The piano is amplified, which enhances these effects impressively, and the pianist needs to be able to speak, sing or whistle whilst playing. In a live performance of Crumb there is an element of theatre and it is all so beautifully imagined that there is never any suggestion of mere gimmickry.
These two sets of Makrokosmos were written for David Burge, who made the first recording on a Nonesuch LP in 1974 (5/75 – nla); then came the complete works for one piano from Robert Nasveld on two CDs from Attacca in 1991; and now the Swiss-trained pianist Christiane Mathe offers a single CD with the two sets of Makrokosmos plus her own brief tribute to Crumb. Other unusual repertoire to her credit includes CDs of Jolivet and Martin (Koch, 8/94).
Mathe is the first woman to record these works, so the singing is an octave higher and she struggles with the demanding whistling where Crumb must be prepared for it to be out of tune: Nasveld’s is so uniform that I suspect electronics! Mathe’s accompaniment figure at the start of “Night-Spell 1” (track 6) is too loud but her Chopin quotation in “Dream Images” (track 11) is softer, and therefore more “emerging from silence” than Burge. Crumb admits a debt to Debussy and Bartok, but he also owes something to Cowell’s inside-the-piano effects and, of course, Cage’s preparations. The use of borrowed material – Chopin, plainsong and folk-song – is perfectly integrated.
Crumb’s whole idea of basing each piece on a different sign of the zodiac, dedicated to a person born then, is atmospheric and convincing: he realizes the spiritual dimension he claims for music. Both Mathe and Nasveld are reliable interpreters with a flair for Crumb. So it’s Nasveld for the complete works or Mathe for the two Makrokosmos sets plus her own brief tribute, Ophiuchus.'