ABSTRACT
In his 2003 song cycle, River of Life, George Crumb casts eight American folk songs and hymn tunes in an eerie setting that draws our attention to a characteristic these songs share: they all explore death. In River of Life, musical meaning depends on our previous experiences of hearing these songs and hymns and on Crumb's ability to imitate natural sounds through evocative percussion timbres. Within the Appalachian setting of River of Life, the river operates as a symbol carrying certain cultural and religious associations. In 'Amazing Grace!' musical echoes resonate like the natural echoes of the mountainous Appalachian landscape. The death of the narrative subject in River of Life suggests that, as the subject unites with nature in death, the individual identity of the subject dissolves into the sounds of the river landscape. In River of Life, however, the concept of the river offers a bridge between physical and spiritual domains.
