George Crumb’s Autobiography George Crumb is finishing his autobiography. Not in so many words, but in “American Songbook,” the six books of folk song settings he finished, after five years’ work, in summer 2007. The final two books, “Voices from a Forgotten World,” and Book VI will be premiered over the next two seasons by Orchestra 2001. It’s a complicated undertaking, for the 78-year-old composer finds deeply personal meaning and reference is almost every note of the songs he has so carefully set. He is equally enthralled by the vast field of percussion instruments with which he has surrounded the pristine songs.
by Dan Webster
PMP 18
Imagine George Crumb, explorer among clouds of percussion, transformer of fragmented bits of poetry by Garcia Lorca, inventor of ceremonial pieces for orchestra and who has been long an icon of the far-reaching new, writing settings of “Down in the Valley,” and “Give Me that Old Time Religion?” It’s his autobiography. The 52 songs were written in his genetic code, part of his growing up in West Virginia. He heard them from his parents and grandparents, and after marrying Elizabeth, sang them to their children. What a complex narrator in this autobiography! That folk song heritage was hardly apparent as he found his voice as a composer. His music was thorny, requiring players of exacting virtuosity—and soul. Even reading the scores required a new approach for players, for many were works of graphic art, inviting instead of commanding entrances or nuance, and asking a new understanding of musical connections. Then, almost 40 years ago, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his orchestra work, “Echoes of Time and the River” which sent players on ceremonial processions on stage. He wrote chamber music for masked players, he incorporated amplified piano, whale song and a widening circle of instruments, sonorities—and pitches—drawn from other cultures. This wasn’t the voice of Appalachia, it was the embrace of virtually all music. His autobiography reminds listeners of a sweep of emotion and power of theatricality in his earlier works. It all started when his daughter, Ann, asked for some Appalachian songs, something she could incorporate in recitals and concerts. The plea sent him headlong into years of work. “It took all of my time,” he recalled one afternoon at his home in Media. “I’m just finishing Book VI and then I’ll be done with the whole darned thing,” “I was obsessive. These were songs from my formative years. I just had to set them. I find something mythical in them. I use only percussion with them. (I count the piano as a percussion instrument.) I know percussion. It’s sort of the underside of music and much underused.” Not underused in this group of songs. Listeners will hear gongs and bells from Japan, Cambodia, China, India and Thailand, rattles from Egypt, whistles, tuned water goblets and several other instruments played in water—even a water cannon—wood blocks, stones, and a toy piano. The four percussionists playing in Book V will each have more than 20 different instruments to play. The songs remain in pure form, but the percussion paints large with swaths of anger, loss, serenity, laughter. The entire set will have been recorded on the Bridge label; “Unto the Hills” and “The River of Life” have been released. His unique situation is clear to him. “These are my Esterháza years,” he says, comparing his immersion in the life of Orchestra 2001 with Haydn’s all-consuming musical life with Prince Esterházy at his castle in Hungary. Conductor James Freeman has made the orchestra the voice of George Crumb, and the composer works closely with the players in rehearsal. “It’s a workshop situation,” he says. “I can hear what works and I can change things and suggest to the players ways to get the sounds I want. Jim knows my style, and the players are extraordinary. Jim and I talk all the time. They have already performed the first book at the
Salzburg Festival. Jim plans big tours in two years—my 80th birthday—and I’m realizing that I haven’t been very practical in writing these songs. The cost of carrying all these percussion instruments is immense. But I know my job is not to be practical. If I hear a sound in my head, I have to reach out to create it.” Whether the closeness of the orchestra and Freeman is responsible, or whether this is a late season flood of inspiration, the fact is that Crumb’s life buzzes with productivity. At the concert in September, Freeman and Marcantonio Barone played a new two-piano work, “Otherworldly Resonances.” “I have more things in mind,” he says. “I want to write for orchestra again, and I want to write for chamber orchestra, I’ve never done that before. And I have a piano work in my head…” It’s a drive few composers can sustain, yet Crumb thrives. He’s early in bed, early up. He makes time to read. “I’ve collected some nice books with leather bindings. I love to read, mostly classics, and I enjoy beautiful books.” He doesn’t live in walled-off silence. His wife has been an active musical partner. The five dogs his daughter has rescued from pounds in New York compete for his affection. Will the final book of songs include dogs barking? His music and his work are in the present. When he looks back over his catalog he says perspective is hard to maintain “You know, some of these were written a third of a century ago, or more. You forget what you were thinking then.” Audiences knew what he was thinking when his Book V was premiered in September. That set included “Bringing in the Sheaves.” His new piano duet also has that tune embedded in the texture. He is harvesting now, not planting. Dan Webster was music critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1964 to 1999.
PMP 19