Pasa Reviews Chamber music at San Miguel Chapel

I feel that “misbegotten” well describes the fateful and melancholy predicament of the species homo sapiens at the present moment in time. Mankind has become ever more “illegitimate” in the natural world of plants and animals. The ancient sense of brotherhood with all life-forms (so poignantly expressed in the poetry of St. Francis of Assisi) has gradually and relentlessly eroded, and consequently we find ourselves monarchs of a dying world. We share the fervent hope that humankind will embrace anew nature’s “moral imperative.”

The composition is stunning, covering a wide range of emotions and dynamics — three differently sized bass drums could make a lot of sound, or just a whisper — and making potent use of nontraditional fluteplaying techniques. The three percussionists played with assiduous coordination. Although the score calls for amplified flute throughout, Wolf Zuber’s instrument seemed usually to be unamplified; she played into a microphone only for a section that employs “Speak-flute” (Crumb’s term), whispering words into the flute’s mouthpiece. That was the weak link in an otherwise excellent interpretation. Crumb insists in the score that both the pitches and the words (from the eighth-century Chinese poet Sikong Shu) must project distinctly; neither did. The flutist also seemed unaccountably demure about emphasizing a quotation from Debussy’s composition attached to that passage. Crumb’s frequent use of quotation is never gratuitous; here it recalls a tale from Greek mythology that involves Pan’s attempt to rape the nymph Syrinx; she escapes his force by being transformed into a reed, but even then he claims dominion by assembling several reeds into a set of panpipes. This admittedly arcane but fundamentally relevant narrative needed to be thrust to the fore. In any case, Wolf Zuber had read Sikong Shu’s text when introducing the piece, and the audience may well have pondered it afterwards: “The moon goes down. There are shivering birds and withering grasses.” — James M. Keller