The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger by Joseph N. StrausReview by: James William SobaskieNotes, Second Series, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Jun., 1996), pp. 1176-1177Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/898399 .

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NOTES, June 1996 NOTES, June 1996

In spite of his musical innovations, Eu- rope's real forte was management of his society bookings. The Wanamakers and Vanderbilts became patrons and by 1916 "as many as fifteen different Europe or- chestras [were] in the field at the same time" filling engagements from Boston to Palm Beach (p. 134). After surviving the World War and a triumphant return to Harlem, Europe planned a possible Broad- way musical and maybe even a National Negro Symphony Orchestra. His dreams came to an end, however, in May 1919 when he was attacked in his dressing room by a mentally unstable band member. What witnesses thought was a minor wound proved to be fatal.

In his short and busy life Europe had, nevertheless, succeeded in obtaining for African-American musicians a level of se- rious critical recognition and financial re- muneration that they had never previously received. Badger's thorough research of primary sources and careful reconstruction of how this breakthrough was accom- plished is worthy of high praise. Even if his prose lacks the infectious lilt of ragtime music, Badger follows his conductor's ba- ton and performs-as Europe demanded of his musicians-with intelligence and me- ticulous precision. A Life in Ragtime thank- fully ignores the recent fashion of forcing one's subject into the shadow of an over- arching theory and avoids retroactive psy- choanalysis. What Badger gives us is the man behind the oft-repeated name, a sense of the bandleader's relations with proteges such as Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and an understanding of Europe's conviction that while music was his business, it was also his contribution to social change that ex- tended far beyond the stage or the dance- floor.

"When you hear music," said jazz sax- ophonist Eric Dolphy, "after it's over, it's gone in the air-you can never capture it again." Badger includes a checklist of Eu- rope's musical compositions and a discog- raphy of his few recording sessions. Per- haps the appearance of this excellent biography will prompt some maker of com- pact discs to reissue a compilation of the sounds that, Badger writes, ". . . helped to give the national culture itself a voice and an aesthetic it badly needed, one that has

In spite of his musical innovations, Eu- rope's real forte was management of his society bookings. The Wanamakers and Vanderbilts became patrons and by 1916 "as many as fifteen different Europe or- chestras [were] in the field at the same time" filling engagements from Boston to Palm Beach (p. 134). After surviving the World War and a triumphant return to Harlem, Europe planned a possible Broad- way musical and maybe even a National Negro Symphony Orchestra. His dreams came to an end, however, in May 1919 when he was attacked in his dressing room by a mentally unstable band member. What witnesses thought was a minor wound proved to be fatal.

In his short and busy life Europe had, nevertheless, succeeded in obtaining for African-American musicians a level of se- rious critical recognition and financial re- muneration that they had never previously received. Badger's thorough research of primary sources and careful reconstruction of how this breakthrough was accom- plished is worthy of high praise. Even if his prose lacks the infectious lilt of ragtime music, Badger follows his conductor's ba- ton and performs-as Europe demanded of his musicians-with intelligence and me- ticulous precision. A Life in Ragtime thank- fully ignores the recent fashion of forcing one's subject into the shadow of an over- arching theory and avoids retroactive psy- choanalysis. What Badger gives us is the man behind the oft-repeated name, a sense of the bandleader's relations with proteges such as Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and an understanding of Europe's conviction that while music was his business, it was also his contribution to social change that ex- tended far beyond the stage or the dance- floor.

"When you hear music," said jazz sax- ophonist Eric Dolphy, "after it's over, it's gone in the air-you can never capture it again." Badger includes a checklist of Eu- rope's musical compositions and a discog- raphy of his few recording sessions. Per- haps the appearance of this excellent biography will prompt some maker of com- pact discs to reissue a compilation of the sounds that, Badger writes, ". . . helped to give the national culture itself a voice and an aesthetic it badly needed, one that has

since been heard around the world" (p. 230). It would be wonderful for the world to hear those sounds again; or, as the jazz fans put it, one more time.

LORENZO THOMAS University of Houston-Downtown

The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger. By Joseph N. Straus. (Music in the Twentieth Century.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. [xii, 260 p. ISBN 0-521-41646-9. $59.95.]

As the end of the twentieth century draws near, we need to place its artistic achievements into a more balanced per- spective. In particular, we must fully assess the contributions of composers outside what we now regard as the mainstream. Among these is Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953), a member of the "ultra- modern" circle that included Henry Cow- ell, Carl Ruggles, and Edgard Varese. Re- jecting traditional tonality, neoclassicism, and the serialism of the Second Viennese school, Crawford created a personal, yet unmistakably American musical language, and her work still sounds as vital and en- gaging as any written in the last half- century. Joseph Straus's new book, The Mu- sic of Ruth Crawford Seeger, offers the first comprehensive examination of its technical basis.

Ruth Crawford's style was initially shaped by her training at the American Conservatory in Chicago in the 1920s and indelibly affected by the music of Alex- ander Scriabin and Dane Rudhyar. Private study with composer/musicologist Charles Seeger led to more systematic control in her musical textures and arguably her best works. Henry Cowell became her strongest advocate, while Charles Seeger, whom Crawford married in 1932, appears to have become less encouraging of her creative ef- forts in later years. Crawford's energies were deflected from original composition for nearly two decades and the composer's premature death makes this silence almost tragic in Straus's view: "Whatever Craw- ford's ultimate motivation, her decision to stop composing brutally truncated a highly

since been heard around the world" (p. 230). It would be wonderful for the world to hear those sounds again; or, as the jazz fans put it, one more time.

LORENZO THOMAS University of Houston-Downtown

The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger. By Joseph N. Straus. (Music in the Twentieth Century.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. [xii, 260 p. ISBN 0-521-41646-9. $59.95.]

As the end of the twentieth century draws near, we need to place its artistic achievements into a more balanced per- spective. In particular, we must fully assess the contributions of composers outside what we now regard as the mainstream. Among these is Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953), a member of the "ultra- modern" circle that included Henry Cow- ell, Carl Ruggles, and Edgard Varese. Re- jecting traditional tonality, neoclassicism, and the serialism of the Second Viennese school, Crawford created a personal, yet unmistakably American musical language, and her work still sounds as vital and en- gaging as any written in the last half- century. Joseph Straus's new book, The Mu- sic of Ruth Crawford Seeger, offers the first comprehensive examination of its technical basis.

Ruth Crawford's style was initially shaped by her training at the American Conservatory in Chicago in the 1920s and indelibly affected by the music of Alex- ander Scriabin and Dane Rudhyar. Private study with composer/musicologist Charles Seeger led to more systematic control in her musical textures and arguably her best works. Henry Cowell became her strongest advocate, while Charles Seeger, whom Crawford married in 1932, appears to have become less encouraging of her creative ef- forts in later years. Crawford's energies were deflected from original composition for nearly two decades and the composer's premature death makes this silence almost tragic in Straus's view: "Whatever Craw- ford's ultimate motivation, her decision to stop composing brutally truncated a highly

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Book Reviews

promising career ... I find it hard not to regret the loss of the music that might oth- erwise have been created" (pp. 212-13). Still, the works that remain to us are boldly innovative and deserving of much more fa- miliar acquaintance.

The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger begins with a brief sketch of Crawford's artistic influences and development. Readers de- siring a fuller account of her life will wish to consult the new biography by Judith Tick (Ruth Crawford Seeger: An American Woman's Life in Music [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995]), but Straus's dis- cussion provides essential foundation and context for his analytical inquiry. The re- mainder of the chapter provides an over- view of his approach, which defines basic technical features of Crawford's style be- fore proceeding to analyses of complete works.

Chapter 2 begins by characterizing Craw- ford's melodies and their registral features. In particular, her emphasis on the non- repetition and equal distribution of notes and intervals, reliance on chromatic com- pletion, and preferred means of motivic transformation all receive excellent expo- sition. Crawford's employment of large- scale designs and precompositional plans are examined next, and we learn that among the techniques she favored were large-scale motivic projection, palindrome, rotational sequences, and ostinato. Finally, her handling of counterpoint, harmony, rhythm, and dynamics are profiled. Prin- ciples acquired from Charles Seeger's theories of dissonant counterpoint and rhythm resonate here in examples drawn from Crawford's songs, piano music, and the Diaphonic Suites.

The next chapter presents six detailed analyses of what Straus considers Craw- ford's most characteristic works, including "Rat Riddles" and "Prayers of Steel" from Three Sandburg Songs (1930-32), the third and fourth movements from her well- known String Quartet (1931), and the first and third movements from her last composition, the Suite for Wind Quintet (1952). Straus's analytic virtuosity is amply evident here, and it is clear that Crawford's complex structures serve profoundly ex- pressive ends. Chapter 4 considers Craw- ford's musical achievements in the context

of her life, the ultramodern movement, and the history of women in music. De- tailed notes, works list, bibliography, and an index complete the book.

The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger is not an exhaustive exploration of the compos- er's whole oeuvre, though it does offer pen- etrating insights into her musical language and a firm basis for further investigation. It also is not casual reading; Straus has called upon all of the resources of con- temporary music theory to illuminate Crawford's unique structures and syntax. Even so, the text is possessed of the same verbal clarity and accessible style that dis- tinguishes Straus's Remaking the Past: Mu- sical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990) and Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1990). Particularly helpful are the book's 185 music examples, which make impor- tant concepts such as dissonation (pp. 17- 20), neume (pp. 20-40), and heterophony (Seeger's term for dissonant counterpoint; pp. 80-93) much more tangible. There are no discussions of Crawford's many folk-song transcriptions and arrangements here, for unlike Bela Bart6k or Ralph Vaughan Williams, her involvement with the vernac- ular tradition appears to have left little trace on her art music, save for Rissolty, Rossolty (1939), a brief orchestral piece com- missioned for a children's radio broadcast. One might have hoped for some analytical demonstration of Crawford's influence on later composers, but ultimately the task of isolating connections falls to us. Straus pro- vides the means to do so.

Ruth Crawford Seeger is a composer whose music certainly deserves to be better known, a worthy model for those strug- gling to attain a personal voice. Her story, uniquely reflected here in the close exami- nation of her work, also dramatizes the need musicians have for good mentors- and the responsibility mentors have to those who have given them their trust. Perhaps we can help make amends.

JAMES WILLIAM SOBASKIE

University of Wisconsin, Marathon Center

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