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This work won the Pulitzer Prize for Crumb in 1968. It is organized as a suite in four movements for orchestra, but the instrumentation is uncommon: there are no double reeds (oboes and bassoons), and the group is augmented by the addition of a mandolin and two pianos. The exceptional nature of this work hardly stops there: different members of the wind and string sections are assigned percussion instruments to play, and several members of the orchestra are required to speak and/or shout during the performance as well.
In addition to these unusual orchestral happenings, a few of the players are called upon to "process" at certain places in the score. In one spot, three of the percussionists ceremoniously
march across the stage, chanting the motto of West Virginia; this is followed not long after by the exit of the mandolin player, who walks offstage reciting the same motto: "Montani semper liberi" ("mountaineers are always free"; it is ironically asked as a question, rather than stated, in performance).
This work is the sequel to Crumb's 1966 composition Eleven Echoes of Autumn, 1965 (Echoes I), and further deals with Crumb's established preoccupation with time, and its relation to man's finite existence. It received its world premiere on May 26, 1967 under the baton of Irwin Hoffman, conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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