George Crumb wrote some of the most exotic, and often electrifying music of the modern era. And yet the composer, who died in February 2022 at the age of 92, radiated a demure persona that was utterly at odds with his ferociously original music. His soft voice, tinged with the gentle drawl and rhythms of his native West Virginia, contrasted with the extreme emotions that inhabited his scores; I can recall attending a recital of a group of his many settings of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca (with the composer in attendance) that elicited a shriek of terror from an audience member.
Crumb’s distinctive voice was well established by the time he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for Echoes of Time and the River. His music, which was influenced by a diversity of figures including Mahler, Debussy, Bartók, and even Thelonious Monk, bravely broke away from the academic orthodoxy that embraced serialism as the only serious way to write. He also introduced extra-musical elements into his work, such as requiring the musicians in Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) and Ancient Voices of Children to wear masks. His instrumentalists were sometimes instructed to chant. And he engraved his meticulously hand-written scores in unusual patterns, such as rendering the staves in a spiral (which, he admitted, was mainly decorative and has minimal effect on the way the music is performed).
It was also during this period that Crumb started to incorporate unusual instrumentation, including vast percussion batteries, electronic amplification, and, notably, prepared piano. The piano is featured in all four books of his great homage to Bartók, Makrokosmos, which he completed over the course of seven years, from 1972–1979. One of the original pianists for book three, Music for a Summer Evening, was James Freeman, who recalls the novelty of the composer’s directions. “I remember that George dropped off the score for the first time at my house, and I was amazed at the work I had to do on it—besides lots of notes, rhythms, and all kinds of extended things inside the piano which I’d never done before. There was even a thumb piano part in my section that wasn’t easy. Now everyone is used to playing these inside-the-piano things. But it wasn’t so then. They were really new. For the recording session of Makrokosmos III for Nonesuch Records, we learned that the Steinway Company refused to allow us to use their pianos, because of all the inside-the-piano playing. Baldwins were rented instead. But the metal bars in Baldwins are in completely different positions than those in Steinways, and of course it was for Steinways that George had written the piece, and on which we’d learned and practiced our parts. That really made things difficult for Gil [Gilbert Kalish, his piano colleague] and me. I don’t remember how we actually managed to play some of those things, but we did, I imagine by somehow stretching our hands and fingers into really awkward positions.”
Freeman also recalls that the composer himself ended up taking part in the performance, although it was not planned. “In the fourth movement, Myth, George calls for someone to groan three times. It was written into Gil’s Part (Piano I), but all four of us tried the groaning. George didn’t like what any of us did—one was too sexual, one too sleepy, one too nasal, one too hoarse. We urged him to do it himself, and he eventually agreed. So it’s George himself groaning on that record, though the liner notes do not acknowledge that!”
Crumb’s best-known work is probably his 1970 amplified string quartet, Black Angels, at least as measured by the number of recordings made of it, by now at least ten. The work created a sensation immediately. It actually inspired the creation of the Kronos Quartet. David Bowie included a recording of the piece on his list of top 25 favorite records. In 2004, I engaged the composer in a lengthy conversation about Black Angels, during which a few truisms about the work were brought into question. Principally, the concept that this was Crumb’s “Vietnam quartet” is not exactly correct. At least it was not conceived as such.
Black Angels, a 20-minute work in 13 sections, took Crumb almost a year to complete. It was commissioned by the Stanley Quartet, then in residence at the University of Michigan. The Vietnam connection, which he came to accept as valid, snuck up on him. “I didn’t approach it that way. It was very late in the compositional process that I became aware of associations with that period. Some have suggested that even some of the titles refer to the geography of Vietnam, such as Night of the Electric Insects. I came to recognize that there was something of the feeling of that strange time. That’s when I called it music in tempore belli, in time of war.”
Then there is the question of numerology. He warned against reading too much into this. “Yes, this business of 7’s and 13’s came into the music. I don’t remember what they even mean. It was more technical, structural. I got carried away with the Friday the 13th thing [the date inscribed on the score]. I think it is important in all music not to reveal too much. Beethoven doesn’t give us all of what’s in his mind. There are references to Shakespeare in his letters, but not in the score. Mahler’s Third originally had descriptive titles for all of the movements, but he dropped them. Even more abstract music is probably connected with other ideas—poetry, landscapes, and other things. Let the listener make the connections.”
In the course of our conversation I was able to conjure an uncharacteristic flicker of pride from Crumb, and even a sense of artistic competition when I asked him about a possible connection to another sensational work, Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1960 Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima. That work opens with a sort of hysteria for high strings that Crumb goes one better in the startlingly slashing violence of the three threnody sections in Black Angels, including the very opening of the piece. “I did know the Penderecki. There was a kind of anguish there, but it is kind of monolithic. I tried to cover a lot more moods.”
Some of the overtly dramatic elements of Crumb’s performance directions have drawn ridicule over the years, but have been largely embraced by musicians and audiences. Flutist Mimi Stillman, founder and artistic director of Dolce Suono Ensemble, was coached by the composer for their performance of Vox Balaenae. “As a performer, I find it endlessly inspiring and fun to present the theatrical elements to an audience, as they contribute to the overarching message of Crumb’s powerful music. The sense of theatricality is intrinsically tied to executing his music—in some sense what makes it theatrical is not really extra-musical. One feels a sense of ritual and drama performing these elements, and they contribute to a sense of wonder and awe for the audience.”
Crumb’s modest demeanor carried over to his important career as a teacher, which could be a challenge for his students. One of his composition students from his long tenure on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Daniel Dorff, recalls his frustration with Crumb’s mild-mannered approach. “I asked Dr. Crumb to be more critical and incisive with me, adding that I came here for constructive criticism to develop my skills, and that my self-confidence wasn’t fragile. That registered loud and clear with George, essentially giving him permission to say whatever he thought about my sketches toward new pieces. From then on, he let loose in the most polite and constructive way, but not holding back with specific troubleshooting and advice. Once he even raised his voice because my motivic structure was so unfocused. That was a great lesson!”
Dorff jokes that “there used to be a saying that talking with Crumb about music is like talking to a tree about nature, meaning that one learns by observing the source rather than by discussing.” This was, in a sense, true for Jennifer Higdon as well, and led to a revelation that transformed her way of thinking about her music. “I had a moment in a lesson when George turned to me and said, ‘You know Jennifer, in the end, all that really matters is how the music sounds.’ And this carried special resonance because I was in the Ph.D. program at Penn, where we worried all the time about being able to theoretically justify every note we put on the page. He was right; in every piece that we love, no matter the genre, the one thing we can always say is that we love how it sounds. So I realized that maybe, if that’s what really matters, I should change my approach to composing, and just follow the sound. I learned to trust my ears and gut instinct in making all of my compositional choices. It’s quite a different approach to thinking theoretically.” And that approach is an essential element of the legacy of George Crumb.
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