An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Flute and Percussion)

An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Amplified Flute and 3 Percussionists) (1985) By George Crumb, Published by Edition Peters.  Amplified Flute and 3 Percussionists (score only - four are needed for performance)  "A somewhat more human-centered view of nature is evident in the nine-minute An Idyll for the Misbegotten for amplified flute and percussion, composed in 1985. Once again, the theatrical element is paramount. Crumb suggests, "impractically," that the music be "heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August." The scoring, employing two of man's oldest instruments, conjures up a primitive, timeless aura; there is a brief quotation from Debussy's Syrinx, interpolated into a passage for the flute that also calls for the performer to speak a few lines by the eighth-century Chinese poet Su-K'ung Shu, while still playing the instrument ("The moon goes down. There are shivering birds and withering grasses."). - Zizi Mueller