Crumb's "Makrokosmos"

[Kent Swafford]

Alan Crane wrote:

>	
>This year, WSU's Contemporary Music Festival will include a performance of
>George Crumb's "Makrokosmos 1," a hands-on (hands-in) piece for amplified
>piano, metal pick and chain, etc.  The performer is a visiting artist.
>
>We don't have a 'designated-hitter' piano to use for non-traditional and
>special-effects performances so it will be done on one of the concert
>instruments, probably a Bosendorfer 225 (7'4").
>
>I'd appreciate any good advice, anecdotes, and general words of wisdom from
>folks who have dealts with this piece either as techs or performers.

The first performance of both the first and second volumes of Crumb's 
Makrokosmos together on one concert was on February 4, 1975 at your own 
Wichita State University. The pianist was David Burge; I still have the 
program. I performed a portion of the work at the University of Kansas a 
few weeks later, on March 1, 1975.

The work is fairly tame in terms of "prepared piano." As I recall, the 
worst thing is that string nodes need to be marked, and some notes 
probably need to be marked so the pianist has some "bearings" inside the 
piano where there are no familiar black/white key patterns.

In this day and age I would suggest Post-it type stickers and/or 
_removable_ tape, neither of which were available way back when. Stickers 
cut from the sticky part of Post-its should stick but will be easily 
removable with little or no residue, especially if removed immediately 
after the performance.

I think this piece can be performed with no damage to the piano, dampers, 
or strings, especially if you can suggest that only removable adhesives 
be used.

Kent Swafford