George Crumb (1929-Present)

Introduction
From Charleston, West Virginia, George Crumb is a avid user of unusual tone colors and other uncommon musical choices like notation. (ex. using a mallet to play the contrabass.)

He had formal music education in college (Bachelor's and Master's degrees) and earned his living by teaching piano and composition.

Work Analysis
The Crumb piece I will be analyzing is Star-Child. This piece won a Grammy award in 2001 for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and for a good reason. It is divided into 7 movements, and throughout the 7 movements the percussion section uses some very interesting instruments from iron chains to thunder sheets. This kind of percussion gives the piece a lot of personality and the vocal parts are extremely powerful and extremely interesting to listen to. Only one of the movements uses the entire ensemble, that is the 4th movement, Music Apocolypica. The most interesting part about this composition is the fact that it requires 4 different conductors because of the sheer size and complexity of the piece. Looking at the piece from a objective perspective, it perfectly accomplishes what it is trying to do. It has parts of sheer atmospheric nature, and other parts that feel art song-is in nature. It is a very other worldly experience that incorporates some of the old and brings it in with the new.

Comparisons
I would compare the more atmospheric parts of this piece to the work of Milton Babbitt and other serialist composers. This serialist effect definitely has a large influence of Crumb's work but Crumb also utilizes the serialist ideals with a grain of salt, only using it when it is necessary. I think Crumb also pushed the envelope on what an ensemble should consist of, encouraging people to push the envelope and try new combination of instruments and how those ensembles are conducted.

Observations
The piece is like a musical equivalent of an Epic poem like the Iliad, the piece is so huge in it's sound that it is so enticing. I really enjoyed just listening to this piece without really focusing on what was going on, it is a great piece to just listen to to help focus and/or just zone out and be transported to another world.