Music For A Summer Evening

On Thursday July 23 2015, Soundstream presented Music For A Summer Evening.

Artistic Director Gabriella Smart program note reads:

George Crumb’s 20th-century masterpiece, Makrokosmos III for two amplified pianos and percussion, hints at a divine power in the universe. It is this seminal work, and its South Australian premiere, that forms the inspirational focus of tonight’s program. George Crumb’s score creates an exotic and ethereal soundscape that transports the listener into another world. His piano preparations have inspired thousands of artists; tonight, we hear three generations of diverse preparations creating a vast array of different sonic landscapes. 


Also featured are two commissions inspired by Makrokosmos III, by James Rushford and 2014 Soundstream Emerging Composer recipient Samuel Smith, as well as a transcription of JS Bach by Tristram Cary. The reference to Bach is deeply embedded; Crumb quotes directly from the Well Tempered Klavier in Music for a Summer Evening, and Cary had a life long respect and love of Bach.

Performed by Luke Dollman (conductor), Tamara Anna Cislowska and Gabriella Smart (pianos), and Amanda Grigg and Andrew Penrose (percussion), the program featured:

  • Tristram Cary – Ricercare for two pianos (arr. from JS Bach, ‘The Musical Offering’ (1774))

  • Samuel Smith – long shadows cast (world premiere, 2014 Soundstream Emerging Composers Forum Commission)

  • James Rushford – Necrology (Commissioned by Soundstream Collective with assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts)

  • George Crumb – Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) (South Australian premiere)

  1. Nocturnal Sounds (epigraph from piece 1 from Salvatore Quasimodo's poem Ulysses' Isle)

  2. Wanderer-Fantasy

  3. The Advent (including Hymn for the Nativity of the Star-Child) (epigraph from from Pascal)

  4. Myth 

  5. Music of the Starry Night (epigraph from Rilke)