He writes, also in regard to Ancient Voices of Children, "I was intrigued by the idea of juxtaposing the seemingly incongruous: a suggestion of flamenco with a baroque quotation, or a reminiscence of Mahler with a breath of the Orient." Again, the result was not simple collage the quotations, though recognizable, were integrated into a total effect that was at once surreal and yet musically logical.Ĭrumb's music was largely freely ordered and non-tonal. Quotation is another device occurring frequently in Crumb's compositions. Regarding Ancient Voices of Children for soprano, boy soprano, and instruments (1970), Crumb wrote, "I have sought musical images that enhance and reinforce the powerful, yet strangely haunting, imagery of Lorca's poetry." The resonance of his timbrel effects and prolonged durations and slow harmonic rhythm combine to create a physical sense of vastness and helplessness that is very much akin to the spirit of Lorca's verse. These include banjo, mouth harp, harmonica, electric guitar, water glasses, and Tibetan prayer stones.Īlmost all of Crumb's vocal music, comprising a large part of his total output, was based on the poetry of Federico García-Lorca, for whom the composer had a truly rare affinity. This coloristic basis also allowed the easy assimilation of folk, popular, and non-traditional instruments into his palette. The singer, too, was asked to produce non-traditional sounds and phonetical vocalizations, sometimes based on parts of a text, and often requiring great virtuosity.įor the most part, Crumb's sounds were produced acoustically, though with use of amplification to increase timbrel variation and to refine dynamic gradation. Some of the more arresting effects are achieved in the following ways: striking a gong while lifting it in and out of a bucket of water (called the water gong) playing the violin and other stringed instruments "bottle-neck style" (that is, with a glass rod or tube on the fingerboard) playing directly on the piano strings, often with thimble-capped fingers and dropping a light metal chain on the piano strings so that the strings, when sounded, will vibrate against it. Crumb utilized the vocabulary of extended vocal and instrumental techniques common to many 20th-century composers and expanded them considerably.
The conciseness and attention to detail are reminiscent of Webern, and the delicacy of the line derives from Eastern music.
Although Crumb listed Debussy, Mahler, and Bartók as being his principal musical influences, the works themselves suggest far broader origins.
An appointment at the University ofĬolorado (1959-1965) and a position as creative associate at the Center of Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo (1964-1965), preceded his longtime post at the University of Pennsylvania.Īn extremely well-integrated eclecticism characterizes Crumb's mature works after the early 1960s. Crumb also studied with Boris Blacher at the Berkshire Music Center and at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1955-1956). He earned degrees from Mason College, Charleston, (B.M., 1950) the University of Illinois (M.M., 1952) and the University of Michigan (D.M.A., 1959), where he studied with Ross Lee Finney. His mother was also a cellist, so Crumb's childhood was saturated with musical inspiration, such that by nine years old he already played piano by ear. The latter, especially, remained an influence in his mature compositions.
He began writing music shortly after his tenth year, motivated by his father, who was a clarinetist and bandleader, and by the popular and religious music of his native Appalachia. George Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia, on October 24, 1929. The American composer and teacher George Crumb (born 1929) developed an immediately recognizable style based on the coloristic potential of instruments and voices, evoking mystery, sensuality, and great spatial dimension.
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