4/16/20

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George Crumb (1929-2022)

George Crumb is among the names of most famous living American composers, and perhaps one of the few that upon searching for images by their name you’ll be met with many more images of their scores than of their face. As a pioneer of avant-garde music, Crumb’s music moved away from conventional notation styles in favor for more graphically-inclined scores (although much of it is still based on the staff and pitch-space of western music). It is for that reason that his scores are famous, not just for the music written on them, but also because of the precision and creativity with which Crumb notates his music. Black Angels, which is perhaps one of Crumb’s most well known scores, is iconic for its abrasive and vivid sounds, its mathematical structure, and - a defining characteristic of much of Crumb’s music - extended techniques for traditional instruments. Today’s piece, Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale), is another very famous piece of his, and one which I had the pleasure to hear performed live by students of the Blair School of Music in the spring of 2019. The piece was written in 1971 (just a year after Black Angels), and totals around 20-25 minutes in length. One of the most notable things about the piece is that the score calls for all three performers to wear masks. Crumb elaborates on this in the performance notes: “Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a recording of which the composer heard in 1969. Each of the three players should wear a black half-mask (visor-mask) throughout the performance of the work. The masks, by effacing a sense of human projection, will symbolize the powerful impersonal forces of nature (nature dehumanized). Vox Balaenae can be performed under a deep-blue stage lighting, if desired, in which case the theatrical effect would be further enhanced.”

I am fully aware that several things which I have revealed about this piece so far may serve to push away some listeners, but I would like to reassure you that this piece executes strange sounds and theatrical elements in a very tasteful way. George Crumb’s creativity and ingenuity, while strange at first, is actually very controlled, making his pieces sound bizarre and other-worldly at first, but quite evocative and distinct in style once you become accustomed to it. Beyond that, Crumb’s music is also rich with melodic ideas and harmonies that range from dense to expansive. In Vox Balaenae, Crumb uses a wide range of extended techniques on the flute, cello, and piano (all of which are amplified), the first and perhaps most striking of them being the sing-playing of the flute. The first section, Vocalise, features an infamous and lengthy flute cadenza in which the flutist must sing the melodic line as they produce the same pitches on the instrument. With the arrival of the Sea Theme, the score calls for the pianist to reach into the piano and strum the strings in the low register, and in Variation I “Archeozoic” Crumb directs to cellist to perform sliding harmonics (or the “seagull effect”). These various techniques continue up through Variation V “Cenozoic,” with other elements being introduced such as the pianist’s use of a bent paperclip and a glass rod. All of these effects which I’ve mentioned add layers to the obscure and unfamiliar sound which Crumb is trying to create in this piece. Following it and allowing yourself as a listener to exist in this strange soundscape will lead you to perhaps one of the most serene and beautiful moments which I have heard in a piece of chamber music, the Sea-Nocturne (..for the end of time). While there are certainly more peaceful and beautiful pieces of music out there, it is the strangeness of the previous 7 sections in Vox Balaenae that accentuate just how wonderful and fleeting the last few minutes of the piece are.

Before wrapping this up, I believe it is important to talk more about why Crumb’s notation style is something of legend in the academic world of music. As a composer, I find plenty of scores to have a visually aesthetic appeal, even if the music isn’t shaped in a circle, swirl, or cross (like in Crumb’s Makrokosmos, Volume I and Volume II). Beyond the aesthetic appeal of George Crumb’s music, however, there is also remarkable experimentation. I would personally argue that a truly shocking amount of information about a piece (especially in contemporary music) is conveyed in the presentation of the score - and not just the actual printed notes and dynamics. By this I mean that even Crumb’s decision to convey very familiar and tonal musical ideas (like in the Sea-Nocturne) in a way that visually does not very closely resemble western music conveys to the performers (and in turn, the audience) the exotic or strange nature of the music. Perhaps this is a stretch, but we could as consider it in the opposite way: consider a composer to be a sculptor and for a blank set of staves to be his/her block of marble. If you change the medium in which the sculpture is created, there are countless strange new ways in which the artist can approach it. By freeing himself from the most approachable form of notation, isn’t Crumb giving himself a push along in exploring new sounds and extended techniques? Sure, there are infinitely many marble sculptures that are yet to be realized, but consider how many more pieces of art there are that free themselves from that specific medium.

Vox Balaenae remains to this day one of my favorite pieces of chamber music for its distinctly strange sound and satisfying arc/structure, which moves from foreign and distant to shimmering, exposed, and open. Additionally, I’m quite proud to say that as student of the brilliant and whimsical Dr. Michael Alec Rose, I can call George Crumb my own grand-teacher. While I have not yet composed anything quite as strange or unconventional as Black Angels or Vox Balaenae, Crumb’s music certainly inspires me to push the boundaries and pursue sounds which can redefine or give clarity to ideas found in music. After all, Vox Balaenae certainly brings about images of the sea in a way that Claude Debussy’s La Mer doesn’t. Of course, I don’t mean to discredit La Mer in any way, I just mean to show how two different pieces achieve such different results even when they are based on similar topics. Below is a recording of Vox Balaenae which is accompanied by the score - before the piece begins, the video shows all of George Crumb’s performance notes about the piece. I would highly recommend pausing the video and reading through those if you would like to have a leg up on following Crumb’s intimidating score.