George Crumb is an American original, the reigning Grand Old Man of American Music. Crumb, who makes his home in Swarthmore, PA, produces works with an economy and elegance that seem to contradict – and yet, somehow, paradoxically, to reinforce – an Ivesian tendency to suggest greater vistas beyond their seemingly modest means.
On a more visceral level, sometimes they can be downright scary. Which is especially amusing since, by all accounts – and supported by my own experience, having met him perhaps five or six times – he has been unfailingly approachable, modest and even cheerful.
It’s fortuitous indeed that his birthday falls so close to Hallowe’en. It’s not for nothing that his work for electric string quartet, “Black Angels,” was used in “The Exorcist.”
Crumb has enjoyed a remarkable Indian summer, drawing on the hymns and folk songs of his West Virginia boyhood and lending them a unique resonance through his imaginative and colorful use of percussion. These are collected into seven cycles for voice titled “American Songbook” – remarkably effective and affecting works, especially when heard live in concert, where the breadth and subtlety of the instrumentation can be fully appreciated.
Just because you’ve been pigeonholed as an avant-gardist doesn’t mean your music can’t be fun. “Mundus Canis” (“A Dog’s World”) is a musical portrait gallery for guitar and percussion inspired by the Crumbs’ family pets. Five of them are enshrined in the suite: Tammy, Fritzi, Heidel, Emma-Jean and Yoda. Apparently Yoda, a fluffy white mixed-breed, adopted from a New York City pound, was especially disobedient.
“Mundis Canis”
Many happy returns to George Crumb on his 90th birthday!
“Black Angels” (wait until after breakfast)
From his “American Songbook:”
“All the Pretty Horses”
“Poor Wayfaring Stranger”
“One More River to Cross”
“Give Me That Old Time Religion”
PHOTO: George Crumb with “bad dog” Yoda
