“The whole visible cosmos is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature”

“The eternal silence of infinite space terrifies me.”

The 17th Century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote these words as part of his own personal attempt to reconcile the scientific discoveries of his time and his own religious faith.

The second quote is shared by George Crumb in his program notes for the Makrokosmos, which will be presented momentarily: a work in 12 parts, each named after a different sun sign of the Zodiac.

I first heard this piece about 20 years ago when George Crumb visited my undergraduate music school as the composer-in-residence. The focus of his visit was a performance of Makrokosmos. It was my first encounter with his work as a composer, this type of new music in general, and I was struck not only by the expansive coloristic palate he got out of the piano with techniques I’d never seen before, but also the scores themselves, organized in mysterious swirls and circular arrangements rather than the traditional linear layout of western notation. During his residency we had the opportunity to discuss the piece with him, and I recall wanting him to talk about the mystical influences of the work and asked him specifically about the circular nature of the scores; what did they mean? How did he come to them in the first place?

In his particular Appalachian drawl, he said, “Well, I was having breakfast one morning and my coffee can made a ring on a sheet of paper underneath it and I thought ‘huh, that’s interesting’. So I drew another circle around it, and then a few more…and there you have it.”

I was disappointed, to say the least. Clearly these beautiful scores were dripping with mystical significance, compounded by the dark, primordial sounds of the compositions themselves. Where was the vast terror of the infinite that so clearly influenced this work? There was no way this masterpiece was simply influenced by a coffee can.

This conversation troubled me for many years. Why didn’t he feel comfortable expanding on some of the big ideas found in his program notes for the piece? The references to Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, to Debussy’s mystical piano preludes, the Zodiac itself? I eventually came to assume these influences were perhaps too personal and dear to him to bring up in a public conversation, which honestly left me feeling a little sad. I’ve seen similar things in my own musical world and it’s one of the reason’s we started the Resonance Collective in the first place, so we could overtly make these delicate, sacred ideas a part of our musical conversation.

But recently, after talking with Nic Gerpe and learning more about Crumb as a person and the influences on his music, I’ve had some other thoughts about his reticence.

In addition to the quotes I began with, Blaise Pascal also wrote:
“The human body, imperceptible in the vastness of the universe, is a colossus in comparison with the parts that make it up…What then is humankind in the midst of these two infinities?”

Perhaps the essence of the piece is not the mystery of fate or the power of hidden symbols but the experience of one person, alone at the piano, contemplating the sky and their place within that vastness – the Makrokosmos and the Mikrokosmos in juxtaposition, and the musician floating between.

All the ‘great’ pieces of art encapsulate big ideas, they transcend the original author and take on powerful meaning on a cultural level. But for the artist themself, at least for George Crumb, these large ideas are only an entry point into the real mystery, that of another human being. That’s what the horoscopes are about in a way, not the overarching energy of the zodiac but how we shape their meaning as individuals so they may speak to our lives. Yes, each piece of the Makrokosmos begins with the name of a particular sun sign, but they also end with a set of initials, friends of Crumb born under those signs.

The Makroskosmos50 project continues this trajectory in a sort of reverse of the Crumb, with Nic as performer commissioning 12 composers he knows and admires to write responses to the original pieces by Crumb. The goal, of course, is great new music, but the heart of the project is interhuman connection.

During one of our early conversations Nic said, “Everyone has a George Crumb story”. I love that. I love that this great composer, famous and revered, is available and approachable enough that many people, myself included, can claim these little personal stories. Sure, maybe Crumb was shy about the impossibly large ideas that influence his work, but maybe he also just wanted to connect, person to person, because he was less interested in being a legend and more interested in us as human beings.

To paraphrase the Southern California chorale director Jonathan Talberg: “a successful musician must do two things: love music and love people”.

Look, sometimes humanity as a whole can be a difficult group to love. If that’s a struggle for you, I suggest looking instead at the individuals who make up that human collective. The individuals are easy to love, perhaps almost easier to love than a big grand idea, and certainly more powerful. Loving an idea might offer us inspiration, but it’s when we direct our purpose and meaning to specific people, a whole new world opens up.

This concert is an opportunity to look up and wonder at the great mystery above us , but it’s also an opportunity to look across at each other and wonder at the mystery there too.