When he embarked on his American Songbook series around the turn of the century, George Crumb envisioned four sets of about nine songs for female voice, amplified piano, and percussion ensemble. By the time of this 2011 Bridge release, the number of songbooks had grown to seven, the fifth of which is recorded here, along with The Ghosts of Alhambra, the first in his Spanish Songbook series. The first four American Songbooks used folk and traditional songs from a wide variety of traditions, including spirituals, folk songs, ...
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When he embarked on his American Songbook series around the turn of the century, George Crumb envisioned four sets of about nine songs for female voice, amplified piano, and percussion ensemble. By the time of this 2011 Bridge release, the number of songbooks had grown to seven, the fifth of which is recorded here, along with The Ghosts of Alhambra, the first in his Spanish Songbook series. The first four American Songbooks used folk and traditional songs from a wide variety of traditions, including spirituals, folk songs, and hymns, with the melodies sung virtually intact and surrounded by Crumb's characteristic colorful, delicately aphoristic orchestration. The Fifth Songbook, titled Voices from a Forgotten World, varies from its predecessors in its use of two singers, and the composer wrote two original melodies set to Native American texts for which no written music survives. Musically, it is very much in the tradition of the earlier volumes, and should have a strong appeal for the composer's fans....
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