By Clarke Bustard
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Performance so energetic that it sounds improvised

For most chamber-music ensembles, a composition dating from 1971 would not be a golden oldie.

But, then, most chamber groups are not eighth blackbird.

Due to begin a residency this fall at the University of Richmond, this sextet — flutist Molly Alicia Barth, clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri, violinist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, percussionist Matthew Duvall and pianist Lisa Kaplan — concentrates on music composed during the past decade.

By that standard, George Crumb's 33-yearold "Vox Balaenae" ("Voice of the Whale") is almost as primeval as the whale songs that echo through it.

The piece, by now considered a classic of late 20th-century American music, shares the ensemble's latest disc, "Beginnings" (Cedille 90000 076), with Daniel Kellogg's "Divinum Mysterium," written for eighth blackbird in 2000 and introduced that year in a New York concert alongside Crumb's "Vox Balaenae."

The pairing makes eminent sense, because both composers — Crumb implicitly and Kellogg explicitly — set out to write musical creation narratives.

Crumb, inspired by recordings of humpback whales, wrote an evolutionary "evocation of nature" that, although couched in what at the time was ultra-modern musical language, sounds elemental and timeless.

Kellogg describes his work as "a personal response to the overwhelming beauty of the creation and the magnificent forces that were involved in its beginnings."

He cites the opening verses of the Gospel According to John as his textual inspiration. "John writes that not only was the world created through Christ, but Christ is also the light that will overcome the darkness by restoring the creation," Kellogg writes. "This was the plan before there was existence; it is circular, beautiful, and offers complete hope."

"Divinum Mysterium" opens with the medieval chant "Of the Father's Love Begotten," sung on the disc by the San Francisco men's ensemble Chanticleer. (The members of eighth blackbird sing it in their concerts.) Subsequent variations on the chant represent the creation as recounted in Genesis.

Kellogg's music is spiritually charged but agile and dynamic, propelled by percussive energy.

"Beginnings," his representation of chaos, presents surging waves of sound atop a strongly syncopated groove. "The Spirit of God Moved Upon the Face of the Waters" contrasts epic pronouncements and long quiet spells with pregnant silences. "Light" is a sprinkling of quicksilver, not a big bang.

The six musicians, who have performed "Divinum Mysterium" regularly over the past four years, were thoroughly fluent in this music by the time they recorded it. Their performance is so energetic and spontaneous that it sounds improvised.

Crumb does not cite Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" as an inspiration for "Vox Balaenae," but those who know the Messiaen will hear the kinship immediately.

Scoring the piece for "three masked players" of electric flute, electric cello and electric piano, Crumb begins with a vocalise "for the beginning of time" and concludes with a "Sea Nocturne" "for the end of time." In between are sections named for geological eras (Archeozic, Proterozoic, etc.).

As time progresses through the eras, the musical texture grows richer, becoming almost romantically lyrical by the concluding nocturne.

Barth, Photinos and Kaplan play Crumb's often very subtle sounds with great sensitivity, and pull off the more impressive feat of making his frequent silences sound integral to the musical narrative.

Copyright © 2004 Richmond Times-Dispatch