George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumbis an American composer of avant-garde music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello, metallic vibrato for the piano, and using a mallet to play the strings of a contrabass, among numerous others. He is not an electronic music composer; however, many works call for amplification of instruments, such as Black Angelsor Ancient Voices of Children. Crumb defines music as...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth24 October 1929
CityCharleston, WV
CountryUnited States of America
The development of new instrumental and vocal idioms has been one of the remarkable phenomena of recent music.
The advent of electronically synthesized sound after World War II has unquestionably had enormous influence on music in general.
Nonetheless, I sense that it will be the task of the future to somehow synthesize the sheer diversity of our present resources into a more organic and well-ordered procedure.
Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred.
I pick up the New York Times or Time and it's talking about the latest rock group, which I'm sure is exciting to some people, but it neglects a huge area of music.
One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.
The retrospective glance is a relatively easy gesture for us to make.
The future will be the child of the past and the present, even if a rebellious child.
I believe that music surpasses even language in its power to mirror the innermost recesses of the human soul
Music might be defined as a system of proportions in the service of a spiritual impulse
If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries.
In general, I feel that the more rationalistic approaches to pitch-organization, including specifically serial technique, have given way, largely, to a more intuitive approach.