A Tribute to George Crumb
The Department of Music is deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague, teacher, mentor and friend composer George Crumb, Walter H. Annenberg Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, who passed away on Sunday, February 6th at the age of 92. A Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner, Crumb was a visionary composer of worldwide renown whose work appealed to professional musicians, pop stars, and filmmakers as well as general audiences. He was among the most influential, recognized, and most frequently performed classical composers over the last 50 years. He retired from Penn in 1997.
I was fortunate to have known George in all of the roles I mentioned above. He was one of my musical heroes and like many of his admirers, I first met him through his music. Similar to the famous exercise "Where were you when such-and-such an event happened...?", I distinctly recall where I was when I first heard his music. It was at my college music professor's house. He picked up a vividly colored LP Ancient Voices of Children and announced with a broad smile, "You've never heard anything like this!" He was right; it changed my life. I immediately wanted to come to Penn - and I know from many graduate students who subsequently entered the composition program that they had been similarly inspired by this marvelous music.
Walking along the south side of the Lerner Center Music Building at the University of Pennsylvania, you arrive at a fountain with an inscription that reads:
"The rhythms of nature -- the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects --
must inevitably find their analogues in music." - George Crumb, "Music: Does it have a future?"
In his quest to echo the sounds of life and nature, George drew on an enormous variety of elements and sources, both instrumental and extramusical. They range from the delicate Tibetan prayer stones and toy piano of Ancient Voices to the massive, apocalyptic percussion explosions in the orchestra piece Star Child. His song cycles contain texts by the tragic surrealist poet Federico García Lorca as well as inimitable rewritings of hymns, spirituals, and revival tunes inspired by his West Virginia roots. These vocal works contain passages that run from the most delicate hushed pathos, to the deepest outpourings of celebration and despair, and then to a mood of sublime resonant serenity.
In addition to running the full spectrum of emotions, he also drew on a wide variety of allusions, an array of liberal arts subjects including philosophy, spirituality, art history, music history, and literature. Some of his works have a political theme like the anti-Vietnam War electric string quartet Black Angels, whereas others, like the Makrokosmos series, seek boundless spirituality. His numerous allusions throughout his work to composers of the past - such as Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Mahler, Thelonious Monk and Jimi Hendrix - are celebrations and continuations of our magnificent musical heritage.
Like Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot, George had the ability to turn his extraordinary imagination towards the humorous and personal. His delightful Mundus canis (A Dog's World), a duo for guitar and percussion, brings you into the Crumbs' living room, a place where students, colleagues and visitors from around the world were always eagerly and warmly welcomed by George, his wife Liz (they met in high school), their children Ann, David, and Peter, and of course the dogs - who always greeted visitors with a robust canine chorus as their smiling master opened the door. The five movements of Mundus canis are humoresques based on the personalities of five of the many dogs that were part of the Crumb household over the years. George wrote in the performance note, "It occurred to me that the feline species had been disproportionally memorialized in music and I wanted to help redress the balance." No one else could have written this piece - or that comment - but George.
His warm personality carried over to his teaching. Both undergraduate and graduate students adored him. On meeting up with him you would always get a smile, maybe a puckish comment. He had a manner that was uplifting; there was a serenity and quiet to his demeanor that without raising the volume a decibel could become passionate. And he was always passionate about music. In composition lessons he was incisive in his remarks, extremely focused on detail, sparse with high praise, but always magnanimous and supportive. An excellent pianist, one could find oneself more enthralled with his playing of lengthy excerpts from memory (including orchestra music) than from the music itself.
To those of us who knew him here at Penn, George added a dimension of civility, kindness, friendship, elegance, and celebrity understatement that is rare to encounter. A brilliant star and a charming individual, he commanded a special place in the hearts of students, faculty and staff.
He offered an answer to the question posed at the fountain "Music: Does it have a future?" He wrote, "Music can never cease evolving; it will continually reinvent the world in its own terms." George Crumb stimulated us to broaden and expand our musical horizons. If music does have a bright future, his will be a strong influence on how that music reinvents itself.
Jay Reise
Emeritus Professor of Music