Tonight I saw members of the Seattle Modern Orchestra play music by George Crumb and Julian Eastman at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford:

1. Crumb: Dream Sequence (1976, for violin, cello, piano, percussion and offstage “glass-harmonica”)

   This was loose and atmospheric, but too unstructured. The big graphical score (I was sitting close) looked more interesting than the music sounded.

2. Crumb: Black Angels - Thirtheen Images From The Dark Land (1969, for Electric String Quartet)

   This on the other hand is and intense and memorable piece. Though I thought I knew it well from my old Brodsky quartet recording and from having heard it live once before at an SSO "Untitled" concert, hearing it here up close was different and I noticed a lot more in it. Plus the musicians really went for it. Angry!

3. Eastman: Gay Guerrilla (1979, version for 13 strings)

   This could be mistaken at first for some sort of minimalism, but it turned out to be something else, an additive, layered experience, developing by fits and starts at first but growing to its conclusion. I was reminded (distantly) of the end of Enescu's Octet for strings, where all the threads combine, but in this case the themes all threaded through a famous Lutheran chorale before dissolving away.