George Crumb

Born: October 24, 1929, Charleston, West Virginia Died: - Biography - Works - Links - Twentieth Century Composer Index

In his own words....

"In Ancient Voices of Children, as in earlier Lorca settings, I have
sought musical images that enhance and reinforce the powerful yet
strangely haunting imagery of Lorca's poetry. I feel that the
essential meaning of this poetry is concerned with the most
primary things; Life death, love, the smell of the earth, the
sounds of the wind and the sea. These ur-concepts are embodied
in a language which is primitive and stark, but which is capable of
infinitely subtle nuance."

American composer and teacher. Crumb has developed a style that uses new techniques in a dramatic, narrative manner.

George Crumb's career is rather typical for American composers in the second half of the twentieth century. His training was largely in American universities (he received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan). In turn, he has spent the majority of his career teaching composition at various universities. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began teaching in 1965. He has received a number of awards (including a Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for his Echoes of Time and the River), as well as numerous honorary degrees.

Crumb's music is a rich blend of new and innovative techniques, often involving aspects of theater. His scores often call for unusual instrumental combinations. His Lux aeterna, for example, adds a sitar to a chamber ensemble, and his Black Angels is written for an amplified string quartet, which he calls on to play various percussion instruments as well as bowing water goblets. In addition, he asks his players and singers to use new ways of producing sounds. This is especially true of his vocal music. Here Crumb allows the singer to turn her voice into a different kind of instrument, using clicks, sighs, laughs, and yells to create dramatic effects (he also asks instrumentalists to speak, sing, or shout, often as a part of playing). Other techniques, such as singing into the piano (to produce extra resonance) or singing though a cardboard tube (to create a sense of physical and even spiritual distance) add new tonal colors to the human voice. Many of his works were written for the virtuoso singer Jan DeGaetani, and their collaborations have been a rich source of new vocal technique.

Crumb's music also stands out for his use of theater. In Vox balanae he calls for the musicians to wear masks and to perform under a blue light. In his pieces, musicians often leave and reenter the stage, or play from offstage. The written scores also share this sense of theater and symbolism—repetitive sections, for instance, might be written on a circular staff—and his music is as visually intriguing as it is musically satisfying. The majority of his vocal pieces are settings of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, and it is in these pieces that he seems to have found his most successful and immediate style. Not surprisingly, these are among his most often performed works.

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Works:

• Orchestral music, including Echoes of Time and the River (1967) and A Haunted Landscape (1984)
• Vocal music based on Lorca poetry, including Night Music I (1963); four books of madrigals (1965–69); Songs, Drones,
  and Refrains of Death (1968); Night of the Four Moons (1969); and Ancient Voices of Children (1970)
• Chamber music, including Black Angels (1970), for electrified string quartet; Lux aeterna (Eternal Light, 1971), for voice and chamber ensemble (including sitar); Vox balanae (The Voice
  of the Whales, 1971), for amplified instruments; and Quest (1994), for guitar and chamber ensemble
• Music for amplified piano, including 2 volumes of Makrokosmos (1972,1973), Music for a Summer Evening (1974), and Zeitgeist (1988); piano music (Processional, 1984)

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Links:

• The Official George Crumb Home Page
  Contains biographical information, a list of works, along with a bibliography and discography. Of special interest is a selection of quotes by and about Crumb.
• Music: Does it Have a Future?
  An electronic version of an essay written by Crumb for the Kenyon Review. Crumb discusses various influences from the past and from other cultures that have shaped the art music of our time, and suggests something of the shape of the music of the future.
• Federico García Lorca
  Much of Crumb's vocal music is based on the poetry of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca (who was executed in the Spanish Civil War). This site is a good gateway to various sites dedicated to the life and works of this great poet.

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