david cohen - george crumb a bio-bibliography

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title: George Crumb : A Bio-bibliography Bio-bibliographies inMusic, 0742-6968 ; No. 90

author: Cohen, David.publisher: Greenwood Publishing Group

isbn10 | asin: 0313318875print isbn13: 9780313318870

ebook isbn13: 9780313016981language: English

subject Crumb, George--Bibliography, Crumb, George--Discography.

publication date: 2002lcc: ML134.C78C64 2002eb

ddc: 780/.92subject: Crumb, George--Bibliography, Crumb, George--

Discography.

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Page iGEORGE CRUMB

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Page ii

George Crumb. Photograph courtesy of The Lapis Archives.

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Page iiiGEORGE CRUMBA Bio-BibliographyDAVID COHENBio-Bibliographies in MusicDonald L.Hixon, Series Adviser

GREENWOOD PRESSWestport, Connecticut London

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Page ivLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataCohen, David, 1970 George Crumb: a bio-bibliography/David Cohen. p. cm.(Bio-bibliographies in music, ISSN 07426968; no. 90) Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography, and index. ISBN 0-313-31887-5 (alk. paper) 1. Crumb, GeorgeBibliography. 2. Crumb, GeorgeDiscography. Title. II. Series. ML134.C78C64 2002 780.92dc21 2002067916 [B]British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.Copyright 2002 by David CohenAll rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002067916ISBN: 0-313-31887-5ISSN: 07426968First published in 2002Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.comPrinted in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Page vCONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgements xiii Biography 1 Works and Performances 25 Writings by Crumb 57 Interviews 61 Bibliography 71 Performance Bibliography 127 Discography 195 Discography Bibliography 221Appendix A: Chronological Listing of Works 241Appendix B: Chronological Listing of Albums 243 Index 249

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Page viiPREFACEIn one mythology the universe emerged from Chaos and Old Night.In another mythology this volume has emerged from what might be termed Near Anarchy.Her name might have been Millyana, only it probably wasnt. Memory is a funny thing in such regards.The heart of the matter isnt names or dates or times, but that at a certain moment I had some musicon the stereo. It might have been the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Jesus and Mary Chain, Hunger Artist,Minor Threat or any one of a number of other bands that could reasonably be termed punk. Thevolume was loud enough that my neighbors could hear and on that particular day, whenever it was,one of them stopped by and asked what I was listening to and if I had any music that was dissonant. Iremember her use of that particular word, dissonant, more than any other aspect of the meeting.Thinking only in general terms, of discordant music, I put a few different LPs on the turntable. Shelistened to excerpts from Never Mind the Bollocks, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, Psychocandy andLegendarni U Zivo with a certain amount of interest but it was clear that none had the dissonance shewas seeking.She asked me if I had ever heard of John Cage, George Rochberg, George Crumb or Richard Wernick.Cage was the only familiar name of the group, but she promised to make me a tape of some selectionsfrom the other three. I still have that cassette. The track listing, written in a small, precise hand, inblack inkGeorge Rochberg: String Quartet No. 3, George Crumb: Music for a Summer Evening and ALittle Suite for Christmas, A. D. 1979, Richard Wernick: Sonata for Piano.

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Page viiiBaudelaire speaks of being intoxicated from sources other than chemicalon poetry, on virtue. Themusic of Crumb was like that for me. Not something to indulge in often, but demanding an attentionand providing a musical nourishment such that the mind was remarkably stimulated and focused after,as with the yogic disciplines or the best visual art or theater.It was exactly one day before I was due to depart for Nepal that I received an email query from DonHixon, the editor of this series of biobibliographies: would I be interested in writing another volume inthe series? Don included a list of possible subjects and when I saw George Crumb included in the list Iimmediately wrote an actual, handwritten letter declaring my interest and mailed it off before I went tothe airport. Since then I have immersed myself in matters Crumbian.Research at the outset seemed to lead in many different directions until, as with listening to GeorgeCrumbs compositions themselves, a certain larger pattern began to emerge.Hopefully, I have sufficiently ordered that initial Near Anarchy into serviceable Bibliography.This volume conforms to the Greenwood Press Bio-Bibliographies in Music series requirements forcontent and style.This bio-bibliography consists of several sections: a biographical essay, works and performances,writings by Crumb, interviews, bibliography, performance bibliography, discography, discographybibliography and two appendixes which chronologically list works and albums.The different sections have their own mnemonic numbering schemes and all related entries are cross-referenced by mnemonic for ease of movement back and forth by the reader.The Biography section is an overview of Crumbs life and career. An exhaustive biography is beyond thescope of this volume. However, this essay covers Crumbs life from his childhood in West Virginia,through his musical education at Mason College, University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan. Itexamines his teaching experiences at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he met David Burgeand composed his first fully mature work, Five Pieces for Piano in 1962 at Burges request. From there itexplores Crumbs career at the University of Pennsylvania and the many compositions which he haswritten while teaching there. A good deal of the biographic information is taken from two interviewsconducted by the author at Crumbs home in Media, PA on 23 March and 7 November 2001.

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Page ixThe Works and Performances section is a complete listing of all of Crumbs mature works, each giventhe mnemonic W and arranged alphabetically by title of work. Although not explored in depth, a listingof juvenilia and student works is also given. For each complete work the following information isprovided: publication number, date, instrumentation, duration, commission, dedication, text, movementsand performance directives from the score. Performances are given the mnemonic W#a. The # is thenumber for the specific composition and each performance listed is given a lower case letter, with adesignating the premiere and proceeding chronologically to b, c, etc. A complete and exhaustive listingof every performance of each Crumb composition is beyond the scope of this volume and only selectedperformances are listed. For each performance the following information is provided: performers, venueand date. At the end of the chapter is a listing of concerts that featured performances of more than oneCrumb work. These entries are given the mnemonic CP (composite performance). All performancelistings are arranged chronologically.The Writings by Crumb section includes all articles written by Crumb, as well as program notes (oftenincluded in the published score) and liner notes (included in an album). These entries are given themnemonic C and are arranged chronologically.The Interviews section contains entries for all known interviews with Crumb. This includes interviewspublished in books, journals, dissertations, those held in archives (including material on audio or videotape), or published on-line. These entries are given the mnemonic I and are arranged chronologically.The Bibliography section includes all general articles about Crumb, including books, journals,dissertations, reviews of scores, webpages (if not specifically interviews or reviews of albums orperformances) and visual materials (such as television shows or films). These entries are given themnemonic B and are arranged chronologically.The Performance Bibliography contains reviews of performances and is arranged alphabetically by workand then chronologically within the listing for each composition. Entries in this section are given themnemonic PB. There is a cross-listing to the specific performance entry in the Works and Performancessection, if known. At the end of the chapter there is a listing of reviews of the composite performances,where more than one Crumb work was performed in a given concert. The specific compositionsperformed are identified by abbreviations, which are listed at the end of this preface, after eachannotation.The Discography is a listing of all known commercial recordings of compositions by Crumb. These entriesare given the mnemonic D and are arranged alphabetically by work and then chronologically within thatwork.

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Page xSince this is a listing for individual compositions there may be multiple entries for a single album andthese are cross-listed accordingly. This is preferable to merely listing by album, since individualrecordings may appear in different permutations on different albums. Each specific entry contains thefollowing information: performer, recording location (if known), author of liner notes, record label,catalog number, date, title of album (if any), other Crumb compositions recorded on the same albumand a cross-listing for any reviews.The Discography Bibliography section contains album reviews. These entries are given the mnemonicDB and are arranged chronologically, with a cross-listing utilizing the D number from the discographyand the compositions abbreviation to indicate which specific recording is being reviewed. For example,[D1-AV] would indicate the Nonesuch H-71255 recording of the composition Ancient Voices of Children.Finally, there are two appendixes which contain a chronological listing of works and a chronologicallisting of albums respectively.Professor Crumb very generously allowed me access to his private scrapbooks, which encompass hisentire professional career. In a few instances I was not able to independently verify the citation ofarticles contained therein and have accordingly included the notation of Crumb Scrapbook with theappropriate pagination. All of Professor Crumbs papers, including his scrapbooks, will eventually begiven to the Library of Congress where they will be accessible to future researchers.For ease of reference, at certain points in this volume the following abbreviations will be used to refer toCrumb compositions:AV= Ancient Voices of ChildrenAP= ApparitionBA= Black AngelsCM= Celestial MechanicsDS= Dream SequenceED= Easter DawningEC= Echoes of Time and the RiverEL= Eleven Echoes of Autumn, 1965FED= Federicos Little Songs for Children5P= Five Pieces for Piano4N= Four NocturnesGV= Gnomic VariationsHL= A Haunted LandscapeID= An Idyll for the MisbegottenLS= A Little Suite for Christmas, A. D. 1979LA= Lux AeternaMAD= Madrigals, Books IIV

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Page xiM1= Makrokosmos, Volume IM2= Makrokosmos, Volume IIMC= Mundus CanisMSE= Music for a Summer EveningNM= Night Music IN4M= Night of the Four MoonsPD= Pastoral DroneP= ProcessionalQ= QuestS= The SleeperSV= Sonata for Solo VioloncelloSD= Songs, Drones and Refrains of DeathSC= Star-Child3ES= Three Early SongsV= VariazioniVB= Vox BalaenaeZ= Zeitgeist

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Page xiiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSFirstly, I would like to thank George Crumb. It would be redundant to thank him for the manycompositions that comprise his contribution to the worlds library of music. It is directly from thosecompositions that this book finds its origin and conversely it is the creation of this volume whichexpresses my gratitude for his music.Instead, I would like to thank George Crumb for graciously opening his house and voluminousscrapbooks to me. For retreading the pathways of his life in interviews. For the good natured andfascinating conversations about archaeology, mythology, travels, politics and even occasionally music.For the books and albums freely loaned whenever he thought they would be helpful. For the offers offood and drink on each visit to keep my strength up. Finally, for sheer generosity of spirit.My thanks as well to all the other members of the Crumb family who so kindly put up with an archivistunderfoot: Elizabeth, Peter, Ann, Yoda and the rest of the pack.Any academic project depends perforce on the help and support of many individuals who contribute inways small and not so small. A hearty gracias then, in no particular order to:Michael Cunningham (Chisholm Institute), Jaco van der Merwe (George Crumb website), Steven Bruns(University of Colorado), Glenn Gunnels (Wichita State University), James Colvin (University of Surrey),Michelle Coles (University of Western Australia), Jessica Wells, John Davey, John Bewley (SUNY Buffalo)and to the helpful and professional staff in both the Music Library and Interlibrary Loan department atthe University of Pennsylvania.

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Page xivCheers to my editor, Don Hixon. Firstly, for asking for this book. Lastly, for patiently putting up with itsabnormally lengthy gestation!As with any such project, all errors contained herein are solely my responsibility. This work is inclusivethrough the end of 2000.My last book was dedicated to several people who had died and it seems only fair to restore the cosmicbalance and dedicate this one to those born in the intervening days between volumes, a short time tosomea lifetime to others.Ahthe star-children of the light, what beautiful music they make: Emma Grace Guilbault, Gabriel CoyteLincoln, Eliot Adrian Lincoln, Sonia Catalina Santos Paulien, Marina Susana Santos Paulien, and LindsayJessica Smith.

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Page 1BIOGRAPHYOut of Darkness, Light.The birth of George Henry Crumb, Jr. on 24 October 1929 was not exactly front page news inCharleston, West Virginia. The main headline in the Charleston Gazette regarding that Black Thursdaywas, Stock Values Tumble $50,000,000 a Minute As Market Collapses.Crumbs father, George Henry Crumb, Sr. was a professional clarinetist with the Charleston SymphonyOrchestra (which later became the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra), music copyist, arranger andoccasional conductor of the pit orchestra for silent films. His mother, Vivian Crumb (ne Reed) was amusician as well, playing cello with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (eventually becoming FirstCello). Soon George was joined by a younger brother, William Reed Crumb, born in 1932.There was no dearth of music in the Crumb household. Crumbs father taught him clarinet as a youngchild, on a small E-Flat instrument, as he couldnt hold anything larger. William played flute and theentire family would often play chamber music in the house. Crumb was also given piano lessons inCharleston by Lucille Blossom.In addition to playing music Crumb was introduced to scores and reading music at an early age. As amusic copyist and arranger Crumb, Sr. often had scores that he was working on around the house andCrumb, Jr. would later credit his interest in the visual aspect and his precise hand in part to viewing thecareful work his father did on scores. The family had a respectable collection of miniature study scoresthanks to his fathers sister, who was able to acquire them very cheaply in Paris in the 1920s.



Page 2While the Crumbs did not have a huge collection of 78s there was also the radio to bring in more music.Charleston was able to get reception for many stations and the Gazette listed no less than 20 differentstations in its Radio by the Clock section ranging from WJZ in New York City to WSM out of Nashville.Most of the stations listed broadcast orchestras or bands at some point during the broadcast day.Crumb started composing very early, at around the age of 10 or 11. He has described those pieces as,somewhat in the style of Mozart. As is perhaps natural for a composer Crumb evolved throughforgeries of other master composers, including Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartk. In order to getto the present Crumb had to work through the styles of the past.Crumb attended Charleston High School from 1944 to 1947. The academic classes were never ofparamount interest to Crumb and he could often be found covertly composing while in an English orMathematics class. He was not, however, a withdrawn child and played clarinet in the school orchestraand was on the track team, competing in the running broad jump and the high jump.It was while in high school that Crumb composed the earliest compositions whose names survive. Theseinclude: Two Duos for Flute and Clarinet (1944), Four Pieces for Violin and Piano (1945), Four Songs forVoice, Clarinet and Piano (on various English texts) (circa 1945), Sonata for Piano (1945), Poem forOrchestra (1946), Seven Songs for Voice and Piano (on various English texts) (1946), Trio for Violin,Cello, and Piano (1946), Gethsemane for Small Orchestra (1947), Prelude and Toccata for Piano (1947)and finally, Three Early Songs (1. Night; 2. Let It Be Forgotten; 3. Wind Elegy) (1947). This prodigiousoutput was no fluke, Crumb had already decided that his future definitely lay with music.Most of the small pieces would have had their premiere in the Crumb household, performed by theCrumb Family Players. Crumb was also in the habit of organizing small groups of local kids in whatmight be termed classical garage bands and they may well have played some of Crumbs works inaddition to the classics. Gethsemane was performed by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, underconductor Antonio Modarelli, as was Poem for Orchestra, the latter being performed for radio broadcastin 1948. Three Early Songs was also performed, circa 1948, by a local tenor named James Bailey and itis the only work from this period which has been performed in more recent days.After graduating from high school Crumb went to a small school in Charleston called Mason College,later to become part of Morris Harvey College, from 19481950. It was during these college days thatCrumb married girlfriend and fellow student at Mason, Elizabeth May Brown on 21 May 1949. Crumbstudied piano and composition at Mason, the former under Arthur McHoul. Crumbs compositions fromthis period included: Alleluja for A



Page 3Cappella Chorus (1948), Sonata for Violin and Piano (1949) and A Cycle of Greek Lyrics (5 Songs) forVoice and Piano (circa 1950). In order to supplement his income Crumb was busy during college playingin various dancehall and music hall bands. Crumb graduated with a bachelors degree in Music (pianoand composition) after three years. As if that were not an exciting enough development there was also anew member of the Crumb family as Crumbs first child, Elizabeth Ann Crumb was born in 1950.Although Crumb would now leave West Virginia he would never leave behind certain aspects of thestate. One was the acoustic which was formed in his childhood by hearing local folk music. This wouldbe expressed by his choice of instruments not commonly utilized in classical music. Future compositionswould include banjo, jews-harp, stone jug, hammered dulcimer and musical saw. Another acoustic wasthe sound of nature in West Virginia which Crumb termed, a reverberant, an echoing acoustic. (I15)Crumb would also include fragments of The Riddle, an Appalachian folk song, in Zeitgeist many yearslater, as well as the state motto, Montani semper liberi (Mountaineers are always free) in Echoes ofTime and the River, although Crumb turns the latter into a query by adding a question mark.Deciding to continue his education, Crumb applied and was accepted into the Masters program at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana in 1951. During this time Crumb was listening more actively to suchcomposers as Bartk and Hindemith. Compositions completed while in Urbana included: Prelude andToccata for Orchestra (1951), Three Pieces for Piano (1951), String Trio (1952) and Three PastoralPieces for Oboe and Piano (1952). Crumb studied composition with Eugene Weigel, who alsoencouraged Crumbs interest in playing the viola, not to the point of virtuosity certainly, but enough sothat he was familiar with the feel and technique of the instrument. Crumb also continued his studies offoreign languages, notably German and Spanish, which he had begun in Charleston in anticipation ofstudying abroad one day. This was through a combination of classes, as well as studying on his ownwith grammar books and recordings. In addition to working on his own compositions Crumb also had ateaching assistantship while at Illinois-Urbana. Crumb received his Masters in Music (composition) fromIllinois-Urbana in 1952.The next step was to obtain a doctorate and Crumb was accepted into the doctoral program at theUniversity of Michigan. While at Michigan his principal teacher was Ross Lee Finney who impressed uponhis students the need for precision and clarity in score notations. It was not a lesson lost on Crumb, whorecalled, these notational concerns he passed along to his students, as well as the admonition todepend upon the inner ear and to hear what youre writingrather than to approach music in anabstract way. That is what made him such a valuable teacher. (C22)



Page 4Finneys concern over what he called beautiful notation complemented what Crumb had learned fromhis father when he used to help copy scores as a child. Even critics who could find no musicallyredeeming features in a Crumb composition would often laud his meticulous and exquisite scores.It was also at Michigan that Crumb was introduced to the poetry of Federico Garca Lorca, which wouldprove to be the inspiration for some of his most acclaimed works. A fellow student, Edward Chudacoff,produced a setting of Lorcas Casida of the Boy Wounded by the Water which made an immediate anddeep impression on Crumb, who recognized a kindred artistic vision in the works of the Spanish poet.While working on his degree and teaching Crumb was, of course, still composing and pieces from thisperiod include: Sonata for Viola and Piano (1953), and String Quartet (1954) which was performed inAnn Arbor and Iowa City and contains, according to Crumb, a lot of Hindemith, Bartk and Berg.(B36) Crumb also completed Diptych for Orchestra at Michigan in 1955.In 1955 Crumb won the Elizabeth Croft Scholarship which enabled him to attend the Berkshire MusicFestival in Tanglewood, Massachusetts and to study composition with Boris Blacher. This meeting withBlacher may well have rekindled Crumbs interest in studying in Germany because that very year heapplied for and secured a Fulbright Fellowship which he used to study for a year in Berlin. Crumb, hiswife Elizabeth and daughter Ann sailed on the ocean liner Italia to Cuxhaven, Germany in August of1955. Crumb then spent the next two weeks in Bad Honnef, near Bonn going through orientation beforemoving on to Berlin. Initially, he had intended to study in Hamburg but contacts in Germany hadpersuaded him that it would be better for him to spend his years residence at the Hochschule fr Musikin Berlin.While Crumb did study piano with Erich Riebensahm during his year in Berlin the majority of his musicaleducation was taken up with going to hear local performances and soaking up the music directly. Duringhis stay in Berlin Crumb completed Sonata for Solo Violoncello, dedicated to his mother. In later yearsCrumb wanted to withdraw the Sonata as a non-representative work, but it had already been publishedby Peters and so he was persuaded to let it remain in the domain of public performance. Crumb won theBMI prize in composition for Sonata for Solo Violoncello and String Quartet in 1956.During the year abroad Crumb and his family took the opportunity to visit some of the nearby Europeancountries, including: Luxembourg, France, England, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. At theend of Crumbs Fulbright residence in Berlin the family took the liner United States back to thoseselfsame states in August of 1956. Although it would be a good number of years before he had thechance to do so again, this year abroad whetted Crumbs appetite for travel.



Page 5Back at Michigan Crumb continued to teach as well as work on his dissertation. His Sonata for SoloVioloncello was premiered by the cellist and fellow student Camilla Doppmann on 15 March 1957 in AnnArbor. In 1959 Crumb completed his dissertation composition, Variazioni, for orchestra. The piece had atwelve-tone theme and was influenced, to some extent by Schoenberg, especially, for example,Summer Morning by the Lake. (I8) Even in this early work Crumb displays a strong timbral sense,which would be a central compositional concern for Crumb and a hallmark in all of his compositions. Asa later review of this piece notes, Crumb is gifted with an absolutely phenomenal sense of timbre andthe ability to make the most difficult music sound extraordinarily simple. (PB437) This transitionalwork was dedicated to a friend from Germany, dancer Rolf Gelewski. There would be no graduationrecital for this complex work and Crumb would have to wait until 1965 in order to hear the premiere ofVariazioni in Cincinnati.After graduating from Michigan in 1959 Crumb taught music theory at Hollins College in Virginia beforegaining a more substantial position at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he was appointedassistant professor of composition and piano. While at Colorado Crumb would have one of thosefortunate quirks of fate and meet someone who would prove to have a significant effect on hiscompositions, David Burge.Burge was a colleague on the piano faculty at Colorado who was interested in twentieth-century music,which was fairly unusual in the early 1960s. Following numerous musical discussions and finding him tohave a similar viewpoint regarding contemporary compositions, Burge asked Crumb to considercomposing some piano pieces for him. Initially, Crumb was noncommittal and so Burge thought nothingmore about his suggestion. Several weeks later Crumb presented Burge with Five Pieces for Piano inDecember 1962. Burge was surprised when he first sat down to look at the new composition, whichblended traditional keyboard playing with extended piano techniques recalling, I would never forgetthat first examination. I had never seen anything like that score. For that matter, neither had anyoneelse. I buried myself in the music, and in the pianos insides. (B310)Suitably impressed with the work, Burge premiered it in Boulder on 12 February 1963. The reaction wasfavorable and Burge decided that more people should be given the opportunity to hear this work so heembarked on a crosscountry tour. The reviews of his performances were almost unanimously positivewith Five Pieces for Piano usually singled out for special praise. A Boulder critic wrote, these were easilythe most fascinating works on the concert. Besides the normal effort at the keyboard, the pianist wasrequired to pick, strum and otherwise aggress upon the viscera of the piano. (PB188)



Page 6Crumb had found his mature style with this work and was already receiving some attention from thecritics. In addition to writing the first work that he felt truly expressed his own compositional voice therewas another reason for Crumb to celebrate in 1962, the birth of his second child, David Reed Crumb.Having been introduced to the poetry of Lorca at Michigan, Crumb had tried to set some of his poetry tomusic. In 1962 he was working on what would eventually become Songs, Drones and Refrains of Deathalthough both the music and the poems chosen would change over time. The piece was simply notworking and so Crumb put it on the back burner and moved on to Night Music I, which in its initialconception was a purely instrumental piece. Crumb realized that two pieces of Lorca poetry would fitwell in the composition and the work gelled. In its first incarnation Night Music I included some aleatorysections. However, Crumb would later alter these to fully written out movements in 1976, albeit with thesuperficial aural sound of improvised music. After hearing many performances Crumb realized the qualityof these movements was extremely variable and upon reflection the improvised movements thatsounded interesting in concert were not as strong if one listened to a recording of the concert.The work is scored for soprano, piano (doubling celesta) and two percussion. Crumb sets two Lorcapoems, La Luna Asoma and Gacela de la Terrible Precencia. The latter poem contains a line whichstruck a deep chord with Crumb regarding the transitory status of art and indeed, all life, y los arcosrotos donde sufre el tiempo (and the broken arches where time suffers). Indeed, the entire work is inthe form of an arch, with two instrumental movements beginning and ending the piece, supporting thetwo vocal movements of the third and fifth movements which surround the keystone of the instrumentalfourth movement. Several Crumb fingerprints are present in this work, including circular notation in theLa Luna Asoma section and the creation of out of the ordinary sonorities with a water-gong glissando.The work was premiered by Le Centre du Musique with Barbara Blanchard, soprano, in Paris on 30January 1964. An early review also points out Anton Weberns early, if indirect influence in terms oftimbre and texture, what distinguishes Crumb is that he found it safe to shore up his fragileWebernisms and elusive aleatory gestures with a few tried and solid props, without fear of sliding backinto the past. (PB360)The next composition Crumb completed was Four Nocturnes in 1964, which in its early days wasactually Five Nocturnes. Upon hearing the work in rehearsal Crumb decided that four movements wasdecidedly sufficient and cut one of the nocturnes. Although Crumb feels that there are hints in NightMusic I of a sense of suspension of time it is more fully realized in Four Nocturnes, which is alsosubtitled Night Music II, thus beginning Crumbs longstanding practice of drawing his works togetherinto groupings or cycles. The work was



Page 7premiered in Buffalo on 3 February 1965 with Paul Zukofsky on violin and Crumb himself on piano, oneof the very few occasions that Crumb premiered his own work.Crumb was in Buffalo, New York at the time because he had been given a Rockefeller Grant whichallowed him to be a composer-in-residence at SUNY Buffalo for the 196465 academic year with theposition of creative associate. The program was established by conductor and composer Lukas Fosswho had been impressed with concert tapes he had heard of Crumbs work. While at Buffalo Crumbtook part in faculty recitals and, as a note of archival interest, some of those recordings are still held atSUNY Buffalo. The year at Buffalo was a turning point for Crumb, who made contacts with the eastcoast classical music scene and decided that he should try and move to the Philadelphia area. Crumbinterviewed at both Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania and was offered positions atboth institutions. In the end he chose Penn.Returning to Colorado for the summer of 1965, Crumb tied up loose ends and prepared himself and hisfamily for the move to the Philadelphia area. They settled in Media, a suburb just a short drive or trainride away from the university campus in west Philadelphia. The Crumb family not only moved house in1965 it also welcomed a new member, Crumbs third child, Peter Stanley Crumb. Crumb joined theMusic department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and would remain there for the next 32years.1965 also saw the publication of Crumbs first, and essentially only, analytical essay, PeterWestergaard: Variations for Six Players in Perspectives of New Music (C1), in which he examines thestructure of the hexachords and the juxtapositions of timbre in Westergaards Variations. The piece hadbeen written while Crumb was still at Colorado and due to the vagaries of publishing had not emergeduntil the summer of 1965. Perspectives had approached Crumb with a request to write the piece. Theiridea was to have contemporary composers analyze the works of their peers and indeed Crumbs NightMusic I is analyzed by Robert Hall Lewis in the very same issue. (B3) Crumb quickly discovered that notonly was prose writing every bit as hard for him as writing music but he was not as excited with thefinal product. Aside from liner or program notes Crumb would write very few articles over the years.Crumb also completed Madrigals, Books III in 1965. The first book had been completed while he wasstill in Colorado. The premiere, at the Library of Congress, by the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble,conducted by Arthur Weisberg also featured the wonderful voice of mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani. Thiswas the first time that Crumb met DeGaetani and was the beginning of a longstanding professionalrelationship and personal friendship. This work was commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky MusicFoundation, which played an important role in supporting young American composers. The reaction was



Page 8immediate and effusive. The variety of tone color Crumb managed to get from his singer and twoinstrumentalists was so wide as to be almost beyond belief. It was certainly an apt demonstration thatthere is no necessary conflict between advanced musical thought and immediacy of appeal. (PB246)Lorca again provided inspiration, once more with the verse, y los arcos rotos donde sufre el tiempowhich forms the keystone of Crumbs composition Eleven Echoes of Autumn, 1965, for violin, alto flute,clarinet and piano. This was the first Crumb composition to be given a poetic title which is not purelydescriptive. However, Crumb discounts the notion that this reflects any programmatic basis for thecompositions remarking, my titles are meant to be metaphoric suggestions only, rather like Debussyswere. (I3) This work was commissioned by Bowdoin College for the Aeolian Chamber Players, whopremiered the work in Brunswick, Maine on 10 August 1966. Reviews for this work were, on the whole,fairly positive. Here the spareness had a quiet and self-renewing vitality and it developed a quality weused to always expect from music. The instruments were admittedly subjected to abnormal treatment,but the end justified the commands of the graph-like score. (PB168) Although there were alsodissenting voices who noted, Crumbs work was at once interesting and disappointing. (PB164)Crumbs friend and former colleague at Colorado, David Burge, released an album in 1966 on theAdvance label which included Crumbs Five Pieces for Piano. (D45) This marked the first appearance ofa recorded Crumb composition and unlike many other contemporary composers there would be only ahandful of years in the next 35 in which a Crumb piece was not released on record. Reactions weregenerally positive, although some critics seemed unsure of the extended piano techniques called for andwrote, Crumbs Five Pieces for Piano are imaginative, carefully shaped for the instrument, but are full oftypical stylistic tricks. (DB1)In May 1967 Crumb was awarded a $2,500 grant by the National Institute of Arts and Letters along withfellow composers Donald Martino, Julian Orbon and Charles Wuorinen.More importantly, in 1967 Crumb composed Echoes of Time and the River; commissioned by theUniversity of Chicago for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This marked Crumbs first composition forfull orchestra since his college dissertation piece, Variazioni, which had somewhat belatedly been givenits premiere by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, with Max Rudolf conducting at the University ofCincinnati, Cincinnati OH on 8 May 1965.In Echoes of Time and the River Crumb returned once again to a feeling of time suspension. One of themost problematic aspects of this composition turned out not to be any complexity of technique but anextra-musical touch in which Crumb called for four processionals by different parts of the orchestra.



Page 9This ran into a certain amount of resistance from professional musicians who felt that they were paid toplay their instruments, not move about the stage while doing so, and that the processionals took away acertain amount of dignity and took additional rehearsal time. Another consideration that needed to betaken into account was the physical space available on stage, with certain venues simply not laid out ina manner conducive to orchestra movement. The processionals were not performed at the premiere, bythe Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with Irwin Hoffman conducting at Mandel Hall, Chicago, IL on 26 May1967. Even the second performance, conducted by Crumbs friend and colleague David Burge the nextMarch, would only include two of the processionals due to space considerations.In spite of the limited number of performances, which were in some senses not even completerenditions as they lacked the processionals, Echoes of Time and the River was nominated andsubsequently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in May 1968. The award came as a surprise to thehumble Crumb, who noted, well, thats nice. (B12) Crumbs mother was, understandably, slightlymore effusive, Im very proud for George and for Charleston. This is, I think, the first time a Pulitzerprize winner has come from Charleston. (B10) Apart from the monetary reward, which was not all thatextensive, the award primarily brought with it a certain amount of attention. So while it was an entirelynatural first reaction for some critics, like Irving Kolodin of the Saturday Review to ask who is GeorgeCrumb? (B14), after the Pulitzer critics and attentive audiences were made aware of Crumb as acomposer whose works were well worth giving a chance.Rather than get caught up with the prestigious award Crumb simply continued to teach composition atPenn and get on with his next work. In this case it was a return to a Lorca piece that he had firststarted to compose as far back as 1962, Songs, Drones and Refrains of Death (for baritone, electricguitar, electric contrabass, electric piano [and electric harpsichord], and percussion). The first attemptshad not really been successful, but now Crumb, commissioned by the University of Iowa, resurrected thepiece, changing the Lorca poems to be set (La Guitara, Casida de las Palomas Oscuras, Cancin deJinete, 1860, Casida del Herido por el Agua) and much of the music as well. Each setting is precededby a refrain, as noted in the title of the work. The connection to its earlier incarnation was fairlytenuous. The mood is darker than in his previous Lorca settings and, maybe because of its extendedgestation in his mind, one of Crumbs favorites. Perhaps summing up his feelings regarding composingLorca settings Crumb says, Lorcas haunting, even mystical vision of deathwhich embodies, and yettranscends, the ancient Spanish traditionis the seminal force of his dark genius. In composing Songs,Drones and Refrains of Death I wanted to find a musical language which might complement this verybeautiful poetry. (C6) The work was premiered by the Center for New Music, William Hibbard,conductor with Harold Heap, baritone, in Iowa City IA on 29 March 1969.



Page 10The next composition is Crumbs most swiftly composed piece with the initial writing confined to theduration of the Apollo 11 flight of 1624 July 1969. although the composer did give himself a certainamount of time afterwards for revision. He christened the work Night of the Four Moons (for alto, altoflute [and piccolo], banjo, electric cello, and percussion), and in it he combined portions of four Lorcapoems (La luna est muerta, muerta, Cuando sale la luna, Otro Adn oscuro est soando,Huye luna, luna, luna!) with his own somewhat ambivalent feelings towards the moon expedition.The four moons might refer to the four poems, the four phases of the moon (new, full, waxing, waning)or be composers license to multiply reality where artistically necessary. The work also features thesound of the banjo, not renowned as the most otherworldly of instruments, contrasting the celestial withthe terrestrial. Night of the Four Moons was commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Players whopremiered the work at the Springfield Township Building, Springfield, PA on 3 April 1970. A review of thepremiere showed that Crumb had captured both the spirit of the space flight and of Lorcas poems witha critic pointing out, it all manages to suggest in sound the phosphorescent otherworldliness of themoon, but it is basically an ironic yet childlike expression of grief for the violated sphere. (PB365)Also completed in 1969 were Madrigals, Books IIIIV, which saw Crumb returning to complete this cycleof works begun in 1965. He had found several other little Lorca poetic pieces and decided to extend theseries and continue his fusion of the instrumental and voice. Over the course of the four books ofMadrigals Crumb varies the instrumentation which accompanies the soprano. Contrabass and vibraphoneare featured in Book I, switching to flute and percussion in Book II before moving on to harp andpercussion in Book III and finally joining all forces: flute, harp, contrabass and percussion in Book IV.This variation serves not only give each book a distinct flavor but allows Crumb to make subtleinstrumental references to the earlier chapters in Book IV. The complete Madrigals premiere waspresented by the Contemporary Group with Elizabeth Suderburg, soprano, at Hub Auditorium in SeattleWA on 6 March 1970.Moving in an entirely different direction, towards the dark and the depths, Crumbs next piece BlackAngels, for electric string quartet, seemed a radical departure in 1970. As his longtime friend andcolleague David Burge commented when he looked back at his experiences with the quiet composer, totry to think of clues that he might have given me as to the demonic fury that erupts in Black Angels(B310) From the beginning, however, people started to overlay their perceptions onto the work. Theinscription of in tempore belli (in time of war) on the score led many people to the assumption that thework was a topical, political composition commenting on the Vietnam war. Crumb has remarked manytimes about his belief that an artist is the sum of his experiences, who absorbs what goes on in lifearound him, and so doubtless there is some part of the work that owes aspects of its existence to beingbirthed during the



Page 11Vietnam war, as it would to being gestated during any such chaotic period. There was not an intentionto comment about specific events and the inscription finds its precedent in Haydns Mass.The work also has the distinction of being the impetus for violinist David Harrington to form theacclaimed Kronos Quartet. As Crumb himself has stated, David always said that he formed Kronos justto play Black Angels, I guess thats not such a bad legacy for a piece to have. (B459) The work hadbeen commissioned by Crumbs doctoral alma mater, the University of Michigan and was premieredthere by the Stanley Quartet on 23 October 1970. Acclaim was immediate with one reviewer of thepremiere lauding, Crumb has designed a music which is so spontaneously interesting it causes thecreative involvement of the audience after the performance has concluded. (PB71) Another critic atthe same concert gushed that the, premiere performance of [Crumbs] Black Angels certainly is one ofthe important events of this (or any) musical season. (PB72)Changing course again, but in doing so returning once more to Lorca, Crumb composed what may wellbe his best known and most popular work, Ancient Voices of Children (for soprano, boy soprano, oboe,mandolin, harp, electric piano [and toy piano], and percussionthe instruments chosen for theirparticular timbral possibilities). The composition was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague CoolidgeFoundation and dedicated to Jan DeGaetani. The work received the International Rostrum of ComposersAward (UNESCO), as well as the Koussevitzky International Recording Award in 1971. The work setsportions of five Lorca poems (El nio busca su voz, Me he perdido muchas veces por el mar, Dednde vienes, amor, mi nio, Todas las tardes en Granada, todas las tardes se muere un nio, Se hallenado de luces mi corazn de seda) with the maternal soprano singing to a boy soprano who is muchin evidence by his physical absence as he sings most of his lines from offstage until the end, mixed withtwo instrumental interludes. The work also contains vocalises by the soprano into the open, amplifiedpiano which produce unforgettable, iridescent sounds. In addition to the lines of Lorca. Crumb includessome purely phonetic sounds, for example ka-o-ka-ka-oka-o-ka-o-ka-o!, which have a surrealistic feelreminiscent of the glossolalic sounds utilized by revolutionary poet and playwright Antonin Artaud in hisradio play, Pour en Finir Avec le Jugement de Dieu (1947).In his liner notes for Ancient Voices of Children Crumb identifies what he feels is the essential core ofLorcas poetry, concerned with the most primary things: life, death, love, the smell of the earth, thesounds of the wind and the sea. (C2) It is this concern with such fundamentals, as epitomized by theuntranslatable Spanish word duende (roughly: passion, lan, bravura in its deepest, most artisticsense) (C2), that so draws Crumb to Lorca.



Page 12Several musical quotations are present in Ancient Voices. A bit of Bist Du Bei Mir from the AnnaMagdelena Bach notebook is played on a toy piano and there is a snippet from Mahlers Das Lied vonder Erde at the end of the piece as the boy soprano finally comes onstage to join the soprano. DonalHenahan notes in a review of the premiere, there is tragic drama at the heart of Mr. Crumbs musicLorca, of all poets demands that. This is music that springs to life as a whole and at once, and may justbe long-lived. (PB2) The premiere featured the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg,conductor, with Jan DeGaetani, soprano, and Michael Dash, boy soprano, at the Library of Congress,Washington DC on 31 October 1970 as part of the 14th Coolidge Festival of Chamber Music. The workhas worn less comfortably with some critics, the work seems less profound yet prettier with everyhearing, and last night its splendors were a revelation. That the texts were impossible to understandwas just as well, since Crumb has betrayed precious little acquaintance with the meaning of GarcaLorcas poetry. (PB52)Crumbs next work, Vox Balaenae (for electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano), was partiallyinspired by a tape of whale songs that he had been given in 1969, although Crumb chose not to literallytranscribe the whale music preferring instead to use the instruments to suggest the sound and feel ofthe songs. In fact, Crumb remarks that merely using tapes of natural sounds is, artistically a mistake.Although art can derive from nature and can suggest or recreate it, theyre actually two different things.(B159) Crumb further instructs the performers to play wearing black half-masks in order to better,symbolize the powerful impersonal forces of nature (nature dehumanized). (C3) Another suggestionCrumb makes to increase the pieces theatricality in performance is to have deep blue stage lighting tocreate a sense of the sub-aquatic. The premiere of Vox Balaenae was performed by the New YorkCamerata at the Library of Congress, Washington DC on 17 March 1972. The theatricality of the piecedid not seem to distract from either the audiences or critics enjoyment, with one critic noting, Even iffuture performances are played in the nude, or wrapped in tinfoil, Crumbs score will remain a powerfulevocation, filled with pools of lyric inspiration to delight chamber music lovers for some time to come.(PB447)Around this time, disillusioned with how his publisher, Belwin-Mills was dealing with his scores Crumbutilized the good services of lawyer (and pianist) Robert Miller to sever his ties with them and to signwith C.F.Peters Corporation who had already published Sonata for Solo Violoncello when Crumb was stilla student. In spite of his efforts, two of Crumbs pieces were not returned to him by Belwin-Mills: NightMusic I and Echoes of Time and the River. These two works are the only ones which are not currentlypublished by Peters.Crumbs next work, Lux Aeterna, in 1971 is scored for soprano, bass flute, sitar and two percussionplayers. The text is from the Latin Requiem Mass.



Page 13However, contrasting this somewhat traditional text is an element of theatricality in the piece whichfirmly echoes that already experienced in Vox Balaenae. The performers are instructed to wear blackmasks, with the flautist and sitar player to sit in the lotus position (if they are limber enough). Theperformance begins in darkness, with red lighting gradually coming up and the singer coming onstage tolight a single candle. At the end of the performance the candle is extinguished and the lighting processis reversed. The idea of using Indian instruments like the sitar, which heralds the refrains in the piece,or tabla (a pair of drums, part of the percussion arsenal) may have originated in Crumbs early days atthe University of Pennsylvania when classes in Indian instruments were close enough for the sound toenter his musical consciousness for future consideration. The ideas of Time and Enigma are once againimportant aspects of a Crumb composition with the performance directive at the beginning of the scorenoting that work is to be played very slow, with a sense of meditative time; pregnant with mystery.(W16) The work was commissioned by the Philadelphia Composers Forum who premiered the piecewith Jenneke Barton, mezzo-soprano, in Richmond, VA on 16 January 1972. The extra-musicality inCrumbs compositions has often drawn comments and outright criticism for distracting from the core ofthe composition, the music, as if they were entirely inappropriate and separate. Crumb comments, thetheatrics, such as masks, lit candles, processionals, special lighting etc., were gestures which seemed tocome out of the musical ideas themselves. Apart from the symbolism carried by such ideas, the auralfactor of sound moving in the performance hall is also a consideration. (I9)1971 also saw the release of an anomaly, an album which includes Crumb as a performer on a piece notof his own composition. During his year in Buffalo Crumb had taken part in numerous faculty recitals butis modest when describing his own abilities on the piano. The Penn Contemporary Players, under thedirection of Richard Wernick recorded Stravinskys Les Noces with Crumb playing one of the four pianoparts. It may well be that Crumbs apprehensions were allayed by the infinitesimal distribution accordedthe record which was released on the Waterstradt label. (D166)After an intermission of ten years Crumb returned to composing for solo piano with Makrokosmos,Volume I. Crumb felt the urge to try and go further with the instrument than he had in Five Pieces forPiano in 1962 or in any of the ensemble pieces which include piano in the intervening years. There is acomposers tip of the hat in terms of the title to Bartks Mikrokosmos and in terms of format toDebussys 24 Preludes, although this latter reference would only take full shape upon the completion ofMakrokosmos, Volume II. Makrokosmos, Volume I is made up of twelve movements, each oneassociated with a sign of the zodiac as well as the initials of one of Crumbs friends, colleagues or acomposer born under that sign (creating something of a parlor game for music aficionados), althoughthere is not necessarily a direct correlation between that individuals personality and their movement.Crumb



Page 14included himself in this rogues gallery in The Phantom Gondolier movement (which he notes should beplayed eerily, with a sense of malignant evil) and well demonstrates Crumbs wry sense of humor.Indeed, Crumb is well known for performance directives which are lyrical as well as descriptive. Crumbinstructs the performers to play, musingly, like the gentle caress of a faintly remembered music, in theDream Images movement. (W21) As with Five Pieces for Piano the performer must not only play on thekeyboard in Makrokosmos I but also inside the instrument and Crumb has the piano amplified so thatevery minute detail may be heard.Several movements are scored as symbols: Crucifixus (cross), The Magic Circle of Infinity (circle) andSpiral Galaxy (spiral). The last symbol is perhaps the most visually recognizable Crumb music. He usedsymbol notation because, the visual symbolism of the page is very important, to him and also becausehe feels, that visual symbolism can communicate something very meaningful to the performer. (I22)A clue to Crumbs use of the spiral may be found in his comment, it could be that today there are morepeople who see culture evolving spirally rather than linearly. With the concentric circles of the spiral, thepoints of contact and the points of departure in music can be more readily found. (C11) Although suchsymbolic notation often draws attention and comment it is worth noting that such notation has a longhistory in music, including Bachs well known waves and serpents, and going back further to medievalcomposers.Sometimes outside factors influence the final structure of a composition. Initially, Crumb had included aquotation from Rachmaninoffs Paganini Variations in Makrokosmos I. However, when he learned that itwas not yet in the public domain and that obtaining permission to use it would be a convoluted legalprocess he substituted the Fantaisie-Impromptu of Chopin and, directs the performer to blur thepedaling so that at the end of the quotation its like melting, it becomes very diffuse. (I8) The work isdedicated to my friend David Burge who gave the premiere in Richmond, Virginia on 8 February 1973.Views varied concerning this work with some opining, this work was astounding for the plenitude ofbizarre sounds that came from the piano and the performer. To the strange sounds of the amplifiedpiano, Burge added grunts, groans, and whistles of his own. (PB275) Others took a more negativetack stating, there are so many Crumb fingerprints, in fact, that the piece borders at times on self-parody. It would be fascinating to learn how much is vintage Crumb and how much is a joke. (PB276)In September 1972 Crumb, along with his wife Elizabeth, returned to Europe for the first time since hisFulbright days in Berlin with a trip to Warsaw and also Spain. The latter destination gave Crumb his firstopportunity to experience some of the atmosphere that gave birth to the Lorca poetry that had provenso influential and central to his own compositions.



Page 15Although he had been on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania since 1965 it was not until 1973that the Philadelphia Orchestra performed one of Crumbs compositions. 25 January 1973 saw thePhiladelphia premiere of Crumbs dissertation piece, Variazioni, conducted by Eugene Ormandy.As in the case of the Echoes series Crumb continued immediately with the Makrokosmos series andcomposed Makrokosmos, Volume II in 1973. Once again there are twelve movements for solo amplifiedpiano with each movement tied to a sign of the zodiac. The structure mirrors the earlier volume in manyways, as the twelve movements are divided into three groups of four and the last movement in eachpart has a symbol notation. This composition is dedicated to his friend (and sometimes lawyer) RobertMiller who premiered the piece at Alice Tully Hall, New York, NY on 12 November 1974. After the firstperformance of both volumes of Makrokosmos the critic Paul Hume wrote, Makrokosmos stands, in thisits initial complete realization, a superbly musical work, filled with new worlds of sound, totallysuccessful in the attainment of the composers ends, which happen to be both musical and extra-musical. (PB295)As was the case with Four Nocturnes Crumb decided to eliminate a movement from his next work, Musicfor a Summer Evening, the third installation in the Makrokosmos cycle. For this chapter Crumb expandedthe instrumentation from solo piano to two pianos and two percussionists, having decided that hewanted to combine the worlds of piano and percussion as Bartk had in his Sonata for Two Pianos andPercussion. Initial sketches of the work contained an additional movement, but worried that the piecewas too long already Crumb removed the extraneous movement. Crumb did not tie this worksmovements to the zodiac, instead labeling them with such names as Nocturnal Sounds and Music of theStarry Night. The work was commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation for Swarthmore College andpremiered by Gilbert Kalish and James Freeman, piano, with Raymond DesRoches and Richard Fitz,percussion, at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA on 30 March 1974. Critics and reviewers were onceagain enthusiastic about the new Crumb work, with longtime New York Times critic Donal Henahanwriting, this latest piece, like so many of his others, is suffused with infinite loneliness, time suspendingcontemplations and mysterious hints of apocalyptic wonders. Among many transfixing moments onecould mention the second movement, when the pianists sustained a counterpoint of plucked strings andstruck keys that was utterly simple and unearthly in its beauty. (PB342)Having worked on the Makrokosmos cycle for most of the 1970s Crumb returned to another series, inthis case that of Images, first explored in Black Angels. This new piece was Dream Sequence (ImagesII), commissioned by Ambassador and Mrs. George J.Feldman and premiered by the Aeolian ChamberPlayers in Brunswick ME on 17 October 1976. The composition is scored for violin, cello, piano,percussion, and offstage glass harmonica, crystal goblets partially filled with water, which sustains itschord throughout the piece,



Page 16thus creating an ethereal drone which accentuates the dream-like feel of the piece. In discussing thework Crumb commented that, the total effect of the work is almost like an accompaniment to anonexistent primary music. The normal idea of a hierarchy is in this piece abandoned. (I9) As hadbecome common for a Crumb work the reviews were glowing, although as was also becoming commonthe focus was more on individual effects and less on the work as a whole. One typical review noted, aneffervescent, incandescent invention, it required a strange instrumentation: dead piano wires [sic],glissandos on piano strings, amplified cymbals, a tolling chime, scraping bow along a cymbal, occasionalviolin, cello interjections, and once in a while a piano note. (PB118)The next year Crumb composed his most monumental work, Star-Child. In his first work for fullorchestra since Echoes of Time and the River Crumb calls for soprano, childrens chorus, male speakingchoir and bell ringers in addition to a very full orchestra. The piece was premiered by The New YorkPhilharmonic, with Pierre Boulez as principal conductor (the piece requires four!) and Irene Gubrud,soprano, at Avery Fisher Hall, New York, NY on 5 May 1977. Although Boulez was enthusiastic about thework and even conducted it in London and Paris he also declared the piece to be, unrecordable,mirroring earlier experts who had contended that Crumbs first orchestral composition, Variazioni, was,unplayable. (B310) Reviews varied, with some feeling that this was a whole new level of Crumbcomposition, it is sensitive, powerful, full of personality, and it marks a significant step in Mr. Crumbsdevelopment. To some, he has been primarily a miniaturistdespite such lengthy piano pieces as theMakrokosmos. But this is big music and even passionate music. (PB400) Other reviewers feared thatCrumb had overreached himself stating that, a look at the score indicated, however, the musics basicharmonic and structural simplicity, and this came across in the disappointing result. Crumb aims forvariety by textures but so far as development is concerned, his music went nowhere. (PB398)One of the more interesting reactions to Star-Child was the string rebellion of the PhiladelphiaOrchestra, many of whom wore earplugs as they rehearsed the piece to protest what they felt was theexcessive volume they had to endure re-positioned in front of the percussion section. The brass players,who normally sit in front of the percussion, noted with a bit of good humor, it gets loud there, but youget used to it. (B214)In September 1977 Crumb was awarded a $10,000 fellowship from the National Endowments for theArts. Echoes resonate not only within Crumbs works but in his life as well. A $10,000 grant from theNational Endowment for the Arts enabled Robert Mugge to complete his film, George Crumb: Voice ofthe Whale. The film, which was completed in 1976 and subsequently broadcast



Page 17on PBS in 1978 includes an interview of Crumb by Richard Wernick and excerpts from Vox Balaenae.The film was released on video by Rhapsody Films in 1988.Returning once more to a smaller ensemble and to the Makrokosmos cycle Crumb composed CelestialMechanics (Makrokosmos IV) in 1979. The title was borrowed from the French mathematician LaplacesTrait de Mchanique Cleste and the titles of the four movements are the names of stars: AlphaCentauri, Beta Cygni, Gamma Draconis and Delta Orionis. Written for amplified piano four hands, a formmuch enjoyed by Crumb (and briefly, six hands, when the page turner takes a somewhat unexpectedturn) the piece marks a certain turning point in how his pieces were received. The premiere was givenby Gilbert Kalish and Paul Jacobs, piano, at Alice Tully Hall, New York, NY on 18 November 1979. Manycritics voiced less than effusive reviews, feeling that perhaps Crumb had overstayed his welcome in theMakroland. A typical reaction was, Mr. Crumb is working in a field that he has gone over many timesbefore, and Makrokosmos IV does not have anything particularly new to add. (PB104) Even longtimeCrumb fan Andrew Porter of the New Yorker could only shake his head and lament, this latest, anddisappointing, piece struck me as a dry, uninspired exercise in drawing unusual sounds from a grandpiano. (PB106) Having already achieved a certain equanimity with regard to critics Crumb was notcrushed by such harsh reviews. However, it would be interesting to discover what the reviewersreactions might have been to the piece on a purely musical basis, without the knowledge that it was acontinuation of the Makrokosmos cycle.In Apparition, for soprano and piano, Crumb turns from his usual source of poetic inspiration, Lorca, toa poem by Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd. Crumb takes Whitmans elegy forthe slain President Lincoln and transforms it, choosing excerpts from portions of the poem (most fromthe Death Carol section) which move away from direct references to Lincoln, but which aretranscendent ruminations on mortality. This was the composers first setting of a poem in his nativetongue since his student days and he intersperses several vocalises amidst the poetry to evoke, orinvoke: summer, the dark angel, and the nightbird of the Death Carol. Crumbs use of only piano andvoice serves to focus the listeners attention on contemplations of death. One critic noted, whereApparition particularly succeeds is in its new economy of means. Crumb has perhaps halved his arsenalof vocal and pianistic devices, and has produced harmonies and melodic fragments consonant withintended moods. (PB65) Crumb completed the composition in 1979 and the premiere was given byJan DeGaetani, mezzo-soprano, and Gilbert Kalish, piano, at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA, New York, NYon 13 January 1981. Inspired by Giottos Nativity frescoes in the Arena Chapel at PaduaCrumb composed a piece for solo piano, A Little Suite for Christmas, A. D. 1979. The 38 frescoes(usually dated circa 13051306) occupy the interior of the



Page 18chapel and portray scenes from the life of Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary. Crumbs work issomewhat more focused in scope, with only seven movements encompassing fifteen minutes of music.Only two of the movements are actually based on fresco panels: The Visitation and Adoration of theMagi. As is standard for a Crumb piano piece the inside of the piano is not neglected in the productionof aural celebration and contemplation that reflect the two aspects of the religious enigma that thecomposer chooses to illuminate. The premiere was performed by Lambert Orkis, piano, at theSmithsonian Institution, Washington, DC on 14 December 1980.1980 also contained a bit of an oddity, a performance of a Crumb work which had not seen the light ofday since the late 1940s. Convinced to allow a performance of Three Early Songs (which had originallybeen part of a larger set, Crumb having chosen the ones he felt were strongest), the pieces wereperformed by Beverly Morgan at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 21 February 1980.Two of the songs, Let It Be Forgotten and Wind Elegy were written by Sara Teasdale while the thirdsong, Night was penned by Robert Southey. Although some sources have cited Elizabeth Crumb (towhom the work is dedicated) as having premiered the work in the 1940s Crumb states that it was, infact, a tenor who lived in Charleston named James Bailey who gave the first public performance. Asmight be expected, the juvenilia reflects certain youthful influences, Rachmoninoff amongst them andwriting for voice in a folk idiom rather than an operatic one. Although many years and experiencesintervene it is interesting to contrast this work with Apparition, also scored for voice and piano andadapting English poetry.Gnomic Variations is, by Crumb standards, a less romantic work than most of his compositions. The titlesof the movements are not poetically conceived. It is as if Crumb is attempting to strip away as manylayers from the work as possible. There is no theatricality, no masks, no special lighting, noprocessionalsonly solo piano music. Even the inside-the-piano work is fairly straightforward, byCrumbian standards. The piece was commissioned and premiered by Jeffrey Jacob at the NationalGallery of Art, Washington , DC on 12 December 1982. Predictably, it was the almost traditional natureof the composition that caught the critics ears, unlike his previous pieces, Gnomic Variations containsno amplification, no literary or musical references, and no theatrical effects, which in the past couldrange from the pianists singing and whistling to the use of chains and paper upon the strings.(PB200)Although Crumb had previously included organ in his compositions (in Star-Child for example) PastoralDrone, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists, is his first and thus far only attempt to writefor solo organ. Crumb indicates that the work, was conceived as an evocation of an ancient open-airmusic. (C13) The foundation of the composition is characterized by drones



Page 19played on the organ pedals which are, overlaid by strident, sharply-etched rhythms in the manual partsand the dynamic level throughout is sempre fortissimo. (C13) Although Crumb would certainly notdisown one of his own mature works he has stated on several occasions that Pastoral Drone is not oneof his favorites, and indeed the work is rarely performed and has not been recorded. Pastoral Drone wascomposed in the summer of 1982 and was premiered on 27 June 1984 by David Craighead.The 1980s were threatening to become Crumbs decade for solo piano (with a brief side trip for soloorgan, Pastoral Drone) and this path continued with Processional in 1983. The composition is resolutelytonal and there is a strong focus on harmonic color as well. Ironically, what really sets this piece apartin the Crumb canon is that he has confined himself to writing on the keyboard with none of the inside-the-piano work that is such a staple of his compositions. The composition was premiered by GilbertKalish (for whom it was written) at Tanglewood in Lennox, MA on 26 July 1984. Perhaps reflectingsomething of a Crumb backlash, critics were none too kind when reviewing this piece: the weakestwork on the program, (PB378), sounded like a gratuitous latter-day vulgarization of Debussys style,(PB379) and, Kalish had the distinction of providing [the reviewer] with a piece by Crumb that [he]could dislike, (PB379) were all typical critical snipes.Audiences may well have despaired of hearing a new Crumb composition for anything more than soloinstrument, however, his next piece A Haunted Landscape, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic,marked a return to a full orchestral work. The piece reflects Crumbs frisson upon first visiting placessuch as Delphos or Andalusia which because of his personal associations (reading mythology or Lorca)were immediately familiar in the midst of being strange, new and mysterious. Once again there is afeeling of time suspension, or even of time which is not wholly linear, so that past and future interminglein a world at once intensely familiar and yet filled with revenants. The work was premiered by the NewYork Philharmonic, Arthur Weisberg, conductor, at Avery Fisher Hall, New York, NY on 7 June 1984(having already been partially performed as a work in progress in the same venue the previous year).The work is in most ways more practical than Crumbs other orchestral compositions, being scored forconventional forces, albeit with an enlarged percussion arsenal, and not requiring any processionals.Most reviewers seemed to think that Crumb had found his course once more, one remarking, AHaunted Landscape truly lives up to its title. It is a grandly evocative tone-poem of myriad colors thatseem a perfect synthesis of Crumbs entire composing career. (PB218)After his success with the Whitman setting of Apparition Crumb returned to an American poet five yearslater with a setting of Poes The Sleeper. Having been specifically commissioned to produce a shortsong, in this case about two minutes in length, closer to pop song length than a classical



Page 20piece, Crumb took only a few lines from Poes poem for his rendition of The Sleeper. By his ownadmission, the sense is considerably altered, with the composition not quite as mournful in feeling asthe poem is but Crumb notes, that there is such a thing as composers license. (C14)The piece is scored for piano and voice with the piano effects used to emphasize the eerie aspects ofthe Poe lines. The voice part is less adorned than in most Crumb pieces, however, he states that it,requires great sensitivity to nuances of pitch and timbre. (C14) The work was premiered at CarnegieHall on 4 December 1984 by two performers long associated with Crumbs works: Jan DeGaetani,mezzo-soprano, and Gilbert Kalish, piano.An Idyll for the Misbegotten reflects Crumbs belief that people are becoming more estranged from thenatural world. We share the fervent hope that humankind will embrace anew natures moralimperative. (C15) Scored for flute and drums the piece has a certain folk flavor and Crumb notes thatthe ideal way to hear his Idyll would be, from afar, over a lake on a moonlit evening in August. (C15)In the event, the premiere was given by Robert Aitken, flute, with percussion, in Toronto, ON on 16November 1986. Unfortunately a bit late in the year for an ideal reception, it is also not clear if theperformance was within range of auditors across Lake Ontario. This composition was later transcribedfor French horn by Crumbs former student Robert G.Patterson, who subsequently gave the hornpremiere at the University of Memphis on 23 November 1997.Although he had remarked numerous times that he was probably done with his Lorca phase Crumbreturned in 1986 to the poets work once more in his Federicos Little Songs for Children, for soprano,flute (piccolo, alto flute, bass flute), and harp. (W9) There had been a hidden store of Lorca poemsthat Crumb thought he might one day return to work on if he found the proper inspiration. In contrastto most of the previous Lorca poems Crumb had set, these are not of a dark, primal flavor but are, asthe name suggests, more innocent poems for children. Consequently, there is a much lighter feel to themusic in this piece. Harking back to the way in which he used instrumentation in Madrigals Crumbremarks that, at an early stage in the sketching process I decided to include all four instruments in theflute family so that I might associate an appropriate timbre with the innate character of each poem.(C16) The composition was written for and premiered by the Jubal Trio in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia,PA on 12 June 1988. A review of the premiere noted, Typically, the music skirts Crumbs fearful bordersof fantasy, but in this smaller piece there is a big dollop of humor. (PB187)In 1986 Don Gillespie, of C.F.Peters, Crumbs publisher, compiled a volume on Crumb, George Crumb:Profile of the Composer. This book featured a brief biography by David Cope, as well as other analyticaland anecdotal articles about Crumb and his compositions by such folk as David Burge, Jan



Page 21DeGaetani, Richard Wernick and Eugene Narmour (amongst others). Gillespie also compiled an extensivebibliography and discography for Crumb, drawn predominantly from the huge scrapbooks that are keptby the composer.Crumb was invited to be the American representative at the Conference of the Union of SovietComposers in April 1986. This was not an altogether common gesture in the days just before the adventof perestroika and Crumb, happy to indulge his wanderlust and be exposed to new music at the sametime, accepted.Zeitgeist marks a return to composing for two pianos and was commissioned by the pianists PeterDegenhardt and Fuat Kent who premiered the work at the Charles Ives Festival in Duisburg, Germanyon 17 January 1988. The piece was then extensively revised. In the work Crumb attempts to touch onseveral aspects of the spirit of the age (C17) including the search for a new musical primitivism, anobsession with more direct modes of expression, the desire to integrate the heritage of Western musicwith non-Western music and the, bewitching appeal of timbre as a potential structural element. (C17)Perhaps in an attempt for the work to live up to its appellation Crumb took a somewhat winding path inhis composition of his next work, Quest. The guitarist David Starobin had requested a piece for guitar asfar back as 1971 and there was the possibility in the pieces infancy that it might be a work for sologuitar, but in the end Crumb did not feel comfortable enough with his command of the instrument, whatit could do and what he could do with it. The result was a piece for septet with guitar taking pride ofplace, accompanied by saxophone, harp, contrabass and two percussion players with a true plethora ofinstruments, including, but certainly not limited to Chinese temple gong, Mexican rain sticks, African logdrum and giro.There was not a single, specific poetic basis for Quest, although Crumb notes that, the concept of aquest as a long, tortuous journey towards an ecstatic and transfigured feeling of arrival becameassociated with certain musical ideas, as he worked through the compositional process. (C20) As withsome of his other pieces Crumb utilizes fragments of a familiar work, in this case Amazing Grace, as amusical quotation several times.As with A Haunted Landscape, which was given a public performance as a work in process, Quest wasplayed in an incomplete version in Amsterdam in 1989. The true premiere was by Speculum Musicaewith David Starobin playing guitar at the Settlement School in Philadelphia, PA on 30 March 1990.However, even after this performance the quest was not complete, for Crumb was not fully satisfiedwith the work and continued to revise it until 1994 when he finished what he now considers to be thedefinitive version.



Page 22Easter Dawning was commissioned by the Guild of Carilloneurs in North America and marked Crumbsfirst foray into composing for carillon, an instrument composed of bells. The process of composition wassomewhat similar to that for Pastoral Drone, in both cases Crumb was familiar with the instrument onlyin part (organ and bells) and had to struggle to deal with the technical and idiomatic strictures of theinstrument as well as using that instrument on a solo basis in the composition. Crumb remarks in theprogram note that, after having learned too that the octatonic scale sounds especially well on thecarillon, I made this scale the principal harmonic and melodic source for the work! (C19) The premierewas given by Don Cook on the Deeds Carillon in Dayton, OH on 13 June 1992.In 1998, after what was for him a long gap between compositions, Crumb attempted to redress theimbalance between works inspired by canines versus those inspired by felines with Mundus Canis (ADogs World), on commission from David Starobin. The five movements of the piece are based on thepersonalities of five dogs that have co-habitated with the Crumb family over the years: Tammy, Fritzi,Heidel, Emma-Jean and the inimitable Yoda, whose musical portrait is to be played prestissimopossibile and brings to mind the canine constant motion present in Futurist Giacomo Ballas paintingDynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912. The piece is at once both playful and peaceful and perhapsreflects Crumbs mindset as he drew his inspiration not from the surrealistic poetry of Lorca, the deathmeditation of Whitman or the soulful song of the whale, but instead from his own home. The work isscored for guitar and percussion. In one of his fairly rare forays on the stage as a performer Crumbplayed the percussion part at the works premiere with David Starobin on guitar in Cannes (perhapschosen because of its proximity to canine) on 20 January 1998.After more than three decades at the University of Pennsylvania Crumb retired from teaching in thespring of 1997. While never a swift or very prolific composer (averaging one work a year from 1962 to1990) Crumb felt he was slowing down and hoped that his retirement would afford him more time toconcentrate on composition. Of course, that does not take into account the extensive traveling that hedoes to hear performances of his work or to help oversee recordings.In fact, beginning around 1990 Crumb started to travel overseas quite frequently, mostly on invitationsto attend festivals or concerts featuring his compositions. An incomplete list of countries visited byCrumb in the last decade include: Mexico, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Finland, Denmark,Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Germany, Canada, Venezuela, Ukraine, Israel, England, SouthAfrica, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Russia.



Page 23The trip in October 1995 to Russia, along with Orchestra 2001, was slightly more dramatic than evenCrumb would have wished for, with gunfire erupting in the street during the visit. Unruffled, Crumbcommented, sometimes its good to hear a little music and forget about the other things. (B397)On the recording front Bridge Records, under the leadership of David Starobin, is releasing the completeworks of Crumb and they are presently five volumes into the project. A particularly exciting aspect ofthis endeavor is that works such as Echoes of Time and the River, which have been out of print andunavailable for many years should soon see the light of day once more. The series thus far has beenwell received and the premiere recording of Star-Child by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra which wason the third volume of Bridges Complete Crumb won the 2000 Grammy for Best Contemporary ClassicalComposition. This was quite an accomplishment for a composition that its first conductor, Pierre Boulez,had called, unrecordable. (B310)In December 2001 Crumb completed a new composition entitled Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (A LittleMidnight Music), which is subtitled Ruminations on a Tune of Thelonious Monk. The composition hascertain references to Monks music, however, it is not variations. It is scored for amplified solo piano andis due to be premiered by summer 2002. The first composition of the new millennium by George Crumb,agent evocateur.



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Page 25WORKS AND PERFORMANCESW1 Ancient Voices of Children (P66303), 1970. Instrumentation: Soprano, Boy Soprano, Oboe,Mandolin, Harp, Electric Piano (and Toy Piano), Percussion (3 Players)Duration: ca. 27Commission: Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge FoundationDedication: for Jan DeGaetaniText: Federico Garca LorcaNotes: The work received the International Rostrum of Composers Award (UNESCO) and theKoussevitzky International Recording Award in 1971.I. El nio busca su voz [The little boy was looking for his voice] (Very free and fantastic in character)Dances of the ancient earth [Interlude]II. Me he perdido muchas veces por el mar [I have lost myself in the sea many times] (Musingly)III. De dnde vienes, amor, mi nio? [From where do you come, my love, my child?] (Freely; withdark, primitive energy) Dance of the sacred life-cycleIV. Todas las tardes en Granada, todas las tardes se muere un nio [Each afternoon in Granada, a childdies each afternoon] (Hushed, intimate; with a sense of suspended time)Ghost dance [Interlude]V. Se ha llenado de luces mi corazn de seda [My heart of silk is filled with lights] (Luminous)W1a Premiere: Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani,soprano; Michael Dash, boy soprano. Library of Congress, Washington DC. 31 October 1970. As part ofthe 14th Coolidge Festival of Chamber Music. See PB1, PB2, PB3, PB5.Selected Additional Performances



Page 26W1b Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; MichaelDash, boy soprano. Hunter College Playhouse, New York NY. 17 December 1970. See PB4.W1c Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; AnthonyMacLean, boy soprano. Sanders Theater, Boston MA. 26 July 1971. See PB6, PB7.W1d Boulder Philharmonic; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; Eric Jacobson, boy soprano. Boulder High School,Boulder CO. 28 January 1972. See PB8, PB9, PB10.W1e New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; Joseph Lampke, boysoprano. Loeb Student Center, New York NY. 18 February 1972. See PB11.W1f Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; MichaelDash, boy soprano. Library of Congress, Washington DC. 24 March 1972. See PB12.W1g London Sinfonietta, Elgar Howart, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; David Pearl, boy soprano.Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. 23 October 1972. See PB13, PB14, PB15, PB20, PB21, PB22.W1h New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano; David Ulin, boysoprano. Philharmonic Hall, New York NY. 18 January 1973. See PB16, PB17.W1i Northwestern University School of Music Chamber Orchestra, Bernard Rubenstein, conductor;Melanie Tomaszkiewicz, soprano. Lutkin Hall, Evanston IL. 28 January 1973. See PB18, PB19.W1j New York Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano. Philharmonic Hall, NewYork NY. 12 June 1973. See PB23, PB24.W1k Musica Viva, Richard Pittman, conductor; Jan Curtis, soprano; Thomas Folan, boy soprano. Busch-Reisinger Museum, Boston MA. 2 October 1973. See PB27.W1i Los Angeles Philharmonic, Paul Chihara, conductor; Margaret Immerman, soprano; Scott VanSanford, boy soprano. Bing Theater, Los Angeles CA. 10 December 1973. See PB28.W1m Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano;Francesca DeGaetani, child soprano. Hertz Hall, Berkeley CA. 13 January 1974. See PB29, PB30.W1n University of Washington Contemporary Group, Robert Suderburg, conductor. Elizabeth Suderburg,soprano; Jonathan Suderburg, boy soprano. Roethke Auditorium, Seattle WA. 30 January 1974. SeePB31, PB32.W1o Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano. MorrisHarvey Auditorium, Charleston WV. 9 February 1974. See PB33, PB34.W1p San Francisco Chamber Music Society, Jean-Louis LeRoux, conductor; Claudia Cummings, soprano;Zachary Klett, boy soprano. Firemens Fund Forum, San Francisco CA. 25 March 1974. See PB35,PB36.W1q Pro Musica Nova, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Lee Dougherty, soprano. Milwaukee Art Center,Milwaukee, WI. 24 September 1975. See PB38, PB39.W1r Cleveland Orchestra. Cleveland OH. 15 October 1975.W1s Fort Worth Symphony, John Giordano, conductor; Joan Wall, soprano; Trace Worrell, boy soprano.Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth TX. 28 March 1976. See PB40,PB41.W1t Chamber Symphony, Marshall Haddock, conductor; Jan DeGaetani, soprano. Womans ClubAuditorium, Louisville KY. 13 April 1976. See PB42.



Page 27W1u Nash Ensemble; Mary Thomas, soprano. Round House, London. 6 September 1976. PB43.W1v 20th Century Consort, Christopher Kendall, conductor; Janet Steele, soprano; Simon Jackson, boysoprano. Kennedy Center, Washington DC. 11 March 1977. See PB44, PB45.W1w Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, conductor; Carol Wilson, soprano; ReneeJones, child soprano. Colorado State University. April 1979. See PB48.W1x New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, conductor; Barbara Martin, soprano; Hector Miletti, boysoprano. Avery Fisher Hall, New York NY. 16 April 1981. See PB50, PB51, PB53.W1y 20th Century Consort; Lucy Shelton, soprano; Nina Basescu, child soprano. Washington DC. 4 May1981. See PB52.W1z Teresa Radomski,

david cohen - george crumb a bio-bibliography

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