A Portrait: Music For Small Or

The male-dominated atmosphere of most of the arts in history has made the search for women's voices often a very difficult one, even for women earlier in this century. So many women of original achievement or promising talent were eclipsed by the men in their lives; think of Alma Mahler for instance, who had a real talent for the human voice, but sublimated it to the promotion of the music of her husband, and then to the promotion of the arts of her other husbands. Sometimes this searching for earlier women's voices leads to the promotion of composers with somewhat dubious abilities such as Amy Beach. But other times it reveals composers of freshness and distinction. Such is the case with Ruth Crawford Seeger. Her output, though small, is some of the most distinctive and original of her generation.

Ruth Crawford began her career in Chicago, at the time, hardly a hotbed of musical experimentation. However, even in this out of the way location, she was able to keep abreast of the new musical experiments in Europe. Music for Small Orchestra represents her music of this time, impressionistic but non-tonal. There are echoes of Ives in the work, as well as Scriabin, and Debussy. The orchestral imagination is distinctive and both works show evidence of considerable formal innovation. The Three Chants continues in this mystical vein, but with even more evidence of development of craft.

In the 1930s Crawford Seeger moved to New York and became active in the most radical wing of American composition. Influenced by iconoclastic composers like Henry Cowell, Varese, Ives, and her husband, Charles Seeger, she adopted a technique of "dissonant counterpoint". This technique, though it tends to be forgotten now in favor of concentration on European serial procedures, was integral in the music of the American radicals. Crawford Seeger's work from this period makes the best case possible for the style, which she uses with facility and ingenuity. The Three Songs for Contralto and instrumental ensemble show her new-found abilities in this style. The work is highly expressive, with a constantly changing background "ostinato"...a truly impressive work.

Crawford Seeger's masterpiece in this style is her String Quartet of 1931. Tightly organized around pithy motives, this is one of the most impressive modernist works written by an American. Her freely atonal style is better developed than the styles of other similar modernists like Copland or Sessions at the time. Yet the work is also marked by logical clarity, and deeply felt emotional content. The Andante in particular is an impressive work and makes an even better string orchestra piece in its 1938 transcription.

As Crawford Seeger and her husband became more and more involved in Marxist politics, their musical interests changed as well. The Adorno influenced aesthetic they had both embraced in the early 30s (modernism in music linked with leftist politics) gave way to a more populist ideal, perhaps reflecting some of the political and artistic concerns in contemporary communist Russia. In any case, both Seegers gave up composing for a long while and became interested in the folk song revival. Moving to the Washington, DC area, the couple worked with Alan and John Lomax at the Smithsonian Institution, helping to collect and arrange a treasury of American folk music. This change to folk music deeply affected the music that Crawford Seeger did write at the time. Rissolty Rossolty from 1939 is an example of a rare piece of music from this time. Written in an idiom that suggests the forms of an Ives piece, with the harmonic restraint of Copland's American period, the work is pleasant, if not as strikingly innovative as her early work.

In the 1950s after taking time off to raise her children, the folk singers Peggy and Pete Seeger, Crawford returned to original composition with the intriguing Suite for Wind Quintet. This work suggests that she was on the brink of discovering a way to mix her early modernist style with her later interest in folk music. The melodies of the Suite are derived from folk music, but highly segmented and manipulated, so that all that remains of the original target tune is the mere suggestion of folkiness. Instead the work resembles a slightly more dissonant French-influenced music, rather like a spiky Poulenc. It is not a masterpiece, but it is an intriguing but ultimately sad picture of the composer. Tragically, she died soon after writing this work.

The performances on this disc are by the Schonberg Ensemble led by Oliver Knussen. They are exemplary. Crawford Seeger is one American composer from this period who I think that European musicians can "get" without much effort. The vocal music is sung by Lucy Shelton, who is terrific in modernist repertoire. I don't think one could ask for a better introduction to this wonderful composer than this disc.

Music for Small Orchestra, written in 1926, was her first work for a sizeable ensemble. It is in two movements, a slow first that might remind some of Ives without the eclecticism; and a second, faster movement that develops irregularly. This is a remarkable and very individual orchestral debut, even if the following works on the disc do somewhat put it in the shade.

The Three Chants for Women's Chorus, written four years later, are a remarkable achievement. Written in phonetic speech and complex atonal counterpoint, they are as remarkable for their musical content as for the pre-echoes of later composers that occasionally emerge. Not only are they consistently more radical than most of the European avant-garde of the day, they are also outstanding music in their own right. The outer movements are mostly slow: the first often in two-part counterpoint, the third much more complex and climaxing with a twelve-note cluster; in contrast the central panel is fast and vigorous.

From the same year comes Piano Study in Mixed Accents, an irregularly rhythmic toccata which is great fun if hardly a major achievement.

The Three Songs, written between 1930 and 1932, are written for an ensemble of contralto, oboe, percussion and piano with optional orchestral ostinato. Once again, their radicalism is dramatic and combined with an infectious joy in the sounds the unusual ensemble can create.

Crawford Seeger's most famous work is probably the String Quartet 1931 (in its original form and in the version for string orchestra of the Andante from it). This is a superb work, full of variety, contrast and atmosphere in its four movements. The evocative Andante is the best known part of it, but the rest of the work is on the same elevated level. The orchestral version of the Andante (also recorded here) arguably is even more impressive than the original--a rare case of a transcription that makes its point.

The rest of the disc is more problematical. The Two Ricecare are attempts at avant-garde Leftist agitprop--a ranting vocal line against an unrelated and largely repetitive piano background. Unfortunately they do not reach the heights that, say, Luigi Nono's political music was able to. Rissolty Rossolty (written in 1939) is a brief orchestral fantasy based on folk songs, written in a conservative style and not very interesting. Largely similar in style is John Hardy, written by Crawford Seeger's husband Charles (a far inferior composer to his wife).

The disc ends with the Suite for Wind Quintet, a long-delayed return to concert music from 1952--the year before Crawford Seeger died. This is a sprightly, largely neo-classical work: tuneful and rhythmic but without totally abandoning the modernism of her earlier years. It doesn't strike me as close to the earlier works in quality, but if she had lived, it might have been part of a new beginning for her.

This is a fascinating disc, and for the first half, a remarkable one. Crawford Seeger was, by the standards of her early works, one of the most talented composers of her generation, and these works are unlikely to disappoint anyone interested in the modernist music of her time.