An Introduction to America’s Music

448 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II

date: 1970

performers: Tony Arnold, soprano;

Kathryn Dupuy Cooper, harmonica;

Hershey Bress, harp; Susan Grace, toy piano;

John Kinzie, Mark Foster, William Hill,

percussion; David Colson, conductor

genre: New Romanticism

meter: changing

form: through-composed

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

• extremely soft dynamic


• unusual and subtle timbres: marimba,
  humming, harmonica


• traditional chords used in nontraditional
  juxtapositions


• Bach quotation in toy piano

Listening Guide 18.2

“Todas las tardes en Granada,”

from Ancient Voices of Children GEORGE CRUMB

timing text translation comments

0:00 The song begins with an extremely soft C-sharp-major

triad sustained on the marimba. After a few seconds, the

three percussionists hum, then sing, the three notes of the

triad, also entering extremely softly, increasing slightly in

volume, then diminishing into silence. At the peak of their

crescendo, a barely audible harmonica adds its timbre to

the same triad, then also fades to silence.

0:28 Todas las tardes

in Granada,

todas las tardes

se...

Each afternoon

in Granada,

each after-

noon...

The soprano sings the text to a melody that begins simply,

with an emphasis on the fi rst three notes of the C-sharp-

major scale.

1:01... muere...... dies... On the word “muere” (dies), the melody leaps to a pitch

outside the scale—the lowered seventh, B natural—then

descends in a series of whole tones that form a dissonant

relationship to the sustained marimba chord.

1:14... un niño.... a child. The soprano whispers the last two words. Then the voices

and harmonica repeat the opening moments.

1:41 The harp, joined by a stroke on a suspended cymbal,

strikes a distantly related triad, G minor (a tritone away

from C sharp), and the marimba chord changes to G minor

as well.

1:52 The toy piano, in the key of D-fl at major (enharmonically

identical to C sharp), plays a fragment of “Bist du bei

mir,” while the marimba continues to sustain the G-minor

chord.

2:26 The toy piano breaks off one note from the end; the three

voices take up the G-minor chord, then fade into silence.

note Recorded in 2005.

CD 3.19

172028_18_440-467_r3_sd.indd 448 23/01/13 11:02 AM