# programme notes #

Pastoral Drone, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists and composed in the summer of 1982, represents my first essay in the solo organ genre (my Star-Child of 1977 included organ as an addition to the orchestral resources).

Pastoral Drone, cast in one continuous movement, was conceived as an evocation of an ancient "open-air" music. The underpinning of the work is provided by relentless drones executed on the organ pedals. The periodical "bending" of the basic drone sound (a lower D-sharp and a higher G-sharp, spaced as an interval of the 11th) announces the principal structural articulations of the work. The drone is overlaid by strident, sharply-etched rhythms in the manual parts and the dynamic throughout is sempre fortissimo ("boldly resounding"). The characteristic sound of Pastoral Drone will suggest a kind of colossal musette.

George Crumb