Here is a most worthwhile project which has only half succeeded. Both pieces have been recorded before (Madrigals on Turnabout TVS34523, Makrokosmos III on Nonesuch H71311 -— neither submitted for review) and though never easily accessible in this country these recordings have contributed to Crumb's remarkable rise up the avant-garde pop charts. The Madrigals are a fine example of his special understanding of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca and its pained images of Nature and Death; Makrokosmos III is rather self-indulgently extended but none the less an extraordinary piece which shows off his amazing repertoire of new sonorities.
   To have the two together on one CD seems like a dream come true. Certainly the performance of Madrigals is more than acceptable. Anne-Marie Muhle can stand comparison with Elizabeth Suderburg on Turnabout (the dedicate of the third and fourth books) and the four instrumentalists delineate the accompaniments with care and sensitivity. Many of these settings are subdued and exploratory (contrast the version of Death stalking in and out of the Tavern with Shostakovich's in his Fourteenth Symphony) and the silent surfaces of CD are a real bonus in this world of delicate evocation and emotional shades.
   Did I say silent? At the opening of Makrokosmos III —- "Nocturnal Sounds (The Awakening)" -— the halo of sound created by sympathetically resonating strings has to complete with obtrusive tape-hiss. Not that it matters much, for this is a quite un-cosmic performance. The mechanical difficulties of realizing the soundeffects are all too obvious (especially when one turns to the Nonesuch recording) and some of the percussion contributions are embarrassingly wide of the mark. Frustrating!