excellent examples of what Crumb was doing. There are several important aspects of Vox Balaenae that makes it very cohesive and effective. One of the most important aspects of Vox Balaenae is the overall texture. Texture is the overall placement and interaction of notes on the page. Tonality is unimportant to texture. The Sea Theme?s texture is not very complex. Crumb chose to omit the flute in favor of the cello and piano. The use of only two instruments keeps the texture very clear. In order to keep the Sea Theme as simple as possible , Crumb structures it in a simple call and answer fashion. The cello sounds four times and the piano answers each time. The instruments do not interact together. First the cello begins and plays a fairly simple melody in the extreme upper register. The piano then enters with strummed chords in the extreme low register. Once again the texture is simplified through the use of extreme registars ; the piano at the bottam and the cello on top. The first variation shares the same texture as the theme. The cello and piano act again in a call and response structure. There is no overlapping or intereaction. This is where the similarities end. The main difference is that the piano is now playing the melody , while the cello has introduced a new sound texutre in the form of seagull noises. Although the structure and overall texture is the same , the sound is totally different. This aspect will be discussed later on in the paper. Tension is increased by the decreasing of the space bewteen the cello and the piano. The listener begins to feel closed in as the seagull effects come in from the top of the range while the piano melody is coming up from the bottom. There is an overall afeeling of a closing in of the music. ...
