Musicians - George Crumb

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	Musicians - George Crumb

George Crumb (born October 24, 1929) is an American composer of modern and avant garde music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres. Examples include spoken flute (one speaks while blowing into the instrument) and glass marbles poured onto an open piano.

Biography

Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and began to compose at an early age. He studied music first at the University of Illinois, and then briefly in Berlin before returning to the United States to study at the University of Michigan, from which he received his Ph.D. 1959.

Although his scores and recordings sell steadily, Crumb has earned his living primarily from teaching. His first teaching job was at a college in Virginia, before he became professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in 1958. In 1965 he began a long association with the University of Pennsylvania, becoming Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1983. Some of his most prominent students include Margaret Brouwer, Uri Caine, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, and Gerald Levinson.

Crumb retired from teaching in 1997, though in early 2002 was appointed with David Burge to a joint residency at Arizona State University. He has continued to compose.

Crumb has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1968 for his orchestral work Echoes of Time and the River.

Crumb's music

After initially being influenced by Anton Webern, Crumb became interested in exploring unusual timbres. He often asks for instruments to be played in unusual ways and several of his pieces are written for electrically amplified instruments.

Crumb's music often seems to be concerned about the theatre of performance as much as the music itself. In several pieces he asks players to leave and enter the stage during the piece. He has also used unusual layouts of musical notation in a number of his scores. In several pieces, the music is symbolically laid out in a circular or spiral fashion.

Several of Crumb's works, including the four books of madrigals he wrote in the late 1960s and Ancient Voices of Children, a song cycle of 1970 for two singers and small instrumental ensemble (which includes a toy piano), are settings of texts by Federico Garcia Lorca. Many of his vocal works were written for the virtuoso singer Jan DeGaetani.

Black Angels (1970) is another piece which displays Crumb's interest in exploring a wide range of timbres. Written for amplified string quartet (referred to as "electric string quartet" by the composer in the score, although the instruments called for are acoustic ones), the players are required to play various percussion instruments and to bow small goblets as well as to play their instruments in both conventional and unconventional ways. It is one of Crumb's best known pieces, and has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet.

Another of Crumb's best known works are the four books of Makrokosmos (1972-74). The first two books are for solo piano, the third, known as Music for a Summer Evening, is for two pianos and percussion, and the fourth is for piano four-hands, titled "Celestial Mechanics." The title alludes to the six books of piano pieces by Béla Bartók, Mikrokosmos, and, like Bartók's work, Makrokosmos is a series of short character pieces. Apart from Bartók, Claude Debussy is another composer Crumb acknowledged as in influence here, although the techniques called for are far from what either of those composers knew. The piano is both amplified and prepared by the placing of objects on and between the strings. On several occasions the pianist is required to sing or shout certain words as well as playing. Makrokosmos was premiered by David Burge, who later recorded the work.

Crumb's works are published by the C. F. Peters Corporation.

Works

Two Duos (1944?) for flute and clarinet
Four Pieces (1945) for violin and piano
Four Songs (1945?) for voice, clarinet and piano
Sonata for piano (1945)
Poem (1946)
Seven Songs (1946) for voice and piano
Gethsemane (1947) for small orchestra
Three Early Songs (1947) for voice and piano
Alleluja (1948) for unaccompanied chorus
Sonata for violin and piano (1949)
A Cycle of Greek Lyrics (1950?) for voice and piano
Prelude and Toccata (1951) for piano
String Trio (1952)
Three Pastoral Pieces (1952) for oboe and piano
Sonata for viola and piano (1953)
String Quartet (1954)
Sonata for solo cello (1955)
Diptych (1955) for orchestra
Variazioni (1959) for large orchestra
Five Pieces (1962) for piano
Night Music I (1963, revised 1976) for soprano, piano/celeste, and two percussionists
Four Nocturnes (Night Music II) (1964) for violin and piano
Madrigals, Books I (1965) for soprano, vibraphone, and double bass
Madrigals, Books II (1965) for soprano, flute/alto flute/piccolo, and percussion
Eleven Echoes of Autumn (Echoes I) (1966) for violin, alto flute, clarinet, and piano
Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II) (1967) for orchestra
Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death (1968) for baritone, electric guitar, electric double bass, amplified piano/electric harpsichord, and two percussionists
Night of the Four Moons (1969) for alto, alto flute/piccolo, banjo, electric cello, and percussion
Madrigals, Books III (1969) for soprano, harp, and percussion
Madrigals, Books IV (1969) for soprano, flute/alto flute/piccolo, harp, double bass, and percussion
Ancient Voices of Children (1970) for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, amplified piano (and toy piano), and percussion (three players)
Black Angels (Images I) (1970) for electric string quartet
Lux Aeterna (1971) for soprano, bass flute/soprano recorder, sitar, and percussion (two players)
Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) (1971) for electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano
Makrokosmos, Volume I (1972) for amplified piano
Makrokosmos, Volume II (1973) for amplified piano
Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) (1974) for two amplified pianos and percussion (two players).
Dream Sequence (Images II) (1976) for violin, cello, piano, percussion (one player), and off-stage glass harmonica (two players)
Star-Child (1977, revised 1979) for soprano, antiphonal children's voices, male speaking choir, bell ringers, and large orchestra
Apparition (1979) for soprano and amplified piano
Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV) (1979) for amplified piano (four hands)
A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 (1980) for piano
Gnomic Variations (1981) for piano
Pastoral Drone (1982) for organ
Trio for Strings (1982)
Processional (1983) for piano
A Haunted Landscape (1984) for orchestra
The Sleeper (1984) for soprano and piano
An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III) (1986) for amplified flute and percussion (three players).
Federico's Little Songs for Children (1986) for soprano, flute/piccolo/alto flute/bass flute, and harp
Zeitgeist (Tableaux Vivants) (1988) for two amplified pianos
Easter Dawning (1991) for carillon
Quest (1994) for guitar, soprano saxophone, harp, double bass, and percussion (two players)
Mundus Canis (A Dog's World) (1998) for guitar and percussion
Unto the Hills (2001) for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (A Little Midnight Music) (2002) for piano
A Journey Beyond Time (2003) for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
Otherworldly Resonances (2003) for two pianos
River of Life (2003) for soprano, percussion quartet and piano
Winds of Destiny (2004) for soprano, percussion quartet and piano

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