Ruth Crawford Seeger
At a certain point last year, I decided to have a look at the music of Ruth Crawford Seeger in hopes of coming to better understand this music that has been torn apart by number crunching analysts - see Straus' book - and as a bellwether of a feminist modernist aesthetic (Hisama and Tick. I also was reminded of her work in copying John Luther Adams' new piece Dark Waves which uses contrasting dynamic shaes like Crawford's quartet. I have been using Tick's volume to fill me in on the biographical details, but have avoided looking into the analysis, as I thought it would be good for me to try and do much of that myself - the Diaphonic Suites are prime ground. What follows are my notes as of today. Again, they are basic notes, not analyses or commentary even. I have not included a number of the unpublished works from Jenny Lin's recording for which scores would be very difficult to obtain. I have been able to get recodings of just about everyting with the exception of the third and fourth Diaphonic Suites which I am in the process of creating (poor) midi files of: these will be posted when the time comes.
Kaleidoscopic Changes on an Original Theme Ending with a Fugue (1924): This was utterly too long.
5 Preludes for piano (1924-25): I find these preludes to be interesting in that they often are concerned with sound, but there is too much of that Scriabin melody that lacks tension. Not my favorite. It could be me.
Adventures of Tom Thumb (1925): This way cloying. Silly figures, akin to Merry Melodies from a cartoon, perhaps that would be a better venue for them. The
accompaniment isn't descriptive so much, indeed there's a lot of oom-pahs. Fluff.
Music for Small Orchestra (1926): Seeger has discovered something between Tom Thumb and this, and I wonder what it is. The opening movement is a mass of rhythmically unrelated ostinatos, while the second is also ostinato-laden but strives for a climax. I don't get the climax in this as arising from the tension mainly, I think, because of the continual use of ostinatos - harmonically we dont move forward though we get louder. I have to look at this at the piano.
Violin Sonata (1926): There are some nice moments in this piece and she has an ear for harmmony of the Ives/Ruggles sort, but too often she falls into ostinato which breaks the forward momentum of the harmonies. Also there is a very strong homophonic tendency in the music, which I find in a number of the american "ultramodernists" almost as if the listener is supposed to think, wow these harmonies are so cool, I don't care about counterpoint.
Suite No. 1 (1927): Piano and winds in three movements, andante, slow then faster. Still a love of ostinatos. The second movement begins with a long held horn tone that remains almost throughout the whole movement. Lacking the power of theopening of the violin sonata.
American Songbag, ed Sandburg - 4 arrangements (1927):
Those Gambler's Blues (p.228): Quite lovely arrangment a far cry from the other (generally awful) arrangements that fill Sandburg's volume
Lonsome Road (p. 322): Interesting harmonization.
There Was an Old Soldier (p. 432): Dull in its corniness.
Ten Thousand Miles Away from Home (p.456): Simple setting in Eb.
4 Preludes for piano (1927-1928):
Suite No. 2 (1929): Relevatory for her earlier works. Here is counterpoint! And good counterpoint at that. There are interesting gestures, romantic in an angular way. Passionate, but not overwhelming.
Five Songs (Sandburg) (1929): Not particularly good or memorable.
Three CHants (1930): These are interersting. She seems to have found a sound of sorts. Chords shifting, dissonant melodies. Still ostinatos and repetitions, but an interesting sound.
Study in Mixed Accents (1930): In octaves throughout with different groupings of the steady 16ths - this is what creates the mixed accents.
Three Songs (Carl Sandburg) (1930-1932): Here is Seeger at her strongest. Some excellent songs, with powerful motives and chiseled features. Not that lollygagging Tom Thumb bs. They consist of:
Rat Riddles (1930): Looking at the scores I get a real sense of the other works around this time as being studies for the materials in these songs for instance, consider the oboe line of the second song, I haven't deternmined its construction mainly owing to the near falling apart of the copy of the score I was able to obtain, but it sounds and looks a lot like the material I've seen in the diaphonic suites. Also the third song, and some of the second song, the melodic material is really related to the Study in Mixed Accents. The second song is perhas the most powerful with its oboe in 5/4 sixteenths, its piano in quintuplet eights divided by a quarter rest and the powerful pounding soprano who moves up in range starting on an anvil strike G#. The ostinato group adds a strange effect, one I'd like to reflect on again after hearing the piece a second time. A powerful memorable work, that should be more played.
In Tall Grass (1932):
Prayers of Steel (1933): Tick says the oboe has a seven pitch row in rotation and the wind ostinatos have 1 through 7 beats of rest increasing and decreasing. Tick also notes a seven note accent pattern in the oboe part
Two Ricercari (Sacco, Vanzetti; Chinaman, Laundryman) (1932): One of her last published works for some time, these are two setting of H.T. Tsang for voice and piano. Of the two, I think Chinaman, Laundryman is the better work. Both have an over-the-top 1930s leftist rhetoric, with Sacco, Vanzetti speaking of the death of our martyrs and the like. Sacco, Vanzetti makes use of chords against a more rallying vocal line, while Chinaman, Laundryman throughout does a complicated 3 against 4 in the accompaniment versus the vocal line. This polyrhythm does not stop Crawford Seeger from using intricate rhythms within it, quintuplets and the like make an appearance. I imagine the effect is to sort of free up the voice from singing, indeed the vocal lines are singable in a traditional sense and often cal for speaking, which she notates with small arrows in place of noteheads. The performance from Sachs' Naxos album is not very good, as the singer lacks some strength.
Kaleidoscopic Changes on an Original Theme Ending with a Fugue (1924): This was utterly too long.
5 Preludes for piano (1924-25): I find these preludes to be interesting in that they often are concerned with sound, but there is too much of that Scriabin melody that lacks tension. Not my favorite. It could be me.
Adventures of Tom Thumb (1925): This way cloying. Silly figures, akin to Merry Melodies from a cartoon, perhaps that would be a better venue for them. The
accompaniment isn't descriptive so much, indeed there's a lot of oom-pahs. Fluff.
Music for Small Orchestra (1926): Seeger has discovered something between Tom Thumb and this, and I wonder what it is. The opening movement is a mass of rhythmically unrelated ostinatos, while the second is also ostinato-laden but strives for a climax. I don't get the climax in this as arising from the tension mainly, I think, because of the continual use of ostinatos - harmonically we dont move forward though we get louder. I have to look at this at the piano.
Violin Sonata (1926): There are some nice moments in this piece and she has an ear for harmmony of the Ives/Ruggles sort, but too often she falls into ostinato which breaks the forward momentum of the harmonies. Also there is a very strong homophonic tendency in the music, which I find in a number of the american "ultramodernists" almost as if the listener is supposed to think, wow these harmonies are so cool, I don't care about counterpoint.
Suite No. 1 (1927): Piano and winds in three movements, andante, slow then faster. Still a love of ostinatos. The second movement begins with a long held horn tone that remains almost throughout the whole movement. Lacking the power of theopening of the violin sonata.
American Songbag, ed Sandburg - 4 arrangements (1927):
Those Gambler's Blues (p.228): Quite lovely arrangment a far cry from the other (generally awful) arrangements that fill Sandburg's volume
Lonsome Road (p. 322): Interesting harmonization.
There Was an Old Soldier (p. 432): Dull in its corniness.
Ten Thousand Miles Away from Home (p.456): Simple setting in Eb.
4 Preludes for piano (1927-1928):
Suite No. 2 (1929): Relevatory for her earlier works. Here is counterpoint! And good counterpoint at that. There are interesting gestures, romantic in an angular way. Passionate, but not overwhelming.
Five Songs (Sandburg) (1929): Not particularly good or memorable.
Three CHants (1930): These are interersting. She seems to have found a sound of sorts. Chords shifting, dissonant melodies. Still ostinatos and repetitions, but an interesting sound.
Study in Mixed Accents (1930): In octaves throughout with different groupings of the steady 16ths - this is what creates the mixed accents.
Three Songs (Carl Sandburg) (1930-1932): Here is Seeger at her strongest. Some excellent songs, with powerful motives and chiseled features. Not that lollygagging Tom Thumb bs. They consist of:
Rat Riddles (1930): Looking at the scores I get a real sense of the other works around this time as being studies for the materials in these songs for instance, consider the oboe line of the second song, I haven't deternmined its construction mainly owing to the near falling apart of the copy of the score I was able to obtain, but it sounds and looks a lot like the material I've seen in the diaphonic suites. Also the third song, and some of the second song, the melodic material is really related to the Study in Mixed Accents. The second song is perhas the most powerful with its oboe in 5/4 sixteenths, its piano in quintuplet eights divided by a quarter rest and the powerful pounding soprano who moves up in range starting on an anvil strike G#. The ostinato group adds a strange effect, one I'd like to reflect on again after hearing the piece a second time. A powerful memorable work, that should be more played.
In Tall Grass (1932):
Prayers of Steel (1933): Tick says the oboe has a seven pitch row in rotation and the wind ostinatos have 1 through 7 beats of rest increasing and decreasing. Tick also notes a seven note accent pattern in the oboe part
Two Ricercari (Sacco, Vanzetti; Chinaman, Laundryman) (1932): One of her last published works for some time, these are two setting of H.T. Tsang for voice and piano. Of the two, I think Chinaman, Laundryman is the better work. Both have an over-the-top 1930s leftist rhetoric, with Sacco, Vanzetti speaking of the death of our martyrs and the like. Sacco, Vanzetti makes use of chords against a more rallying vocal line, while Chinaman, Laundryman throughout does a complicated 3 against 4 in the accompaniment versus the vocal line. This polyrhythm does not stop Crawford Seeger from using intricate rhythms within it, quintuplets and the like make an appearance. I imagine the effect is to sort of free up the voice from singing, indeed the vocal lines are singable in a traditional sense and often cal for speaking, which she notates with small arrows in place of noteheads. The performance from Sachs' Naxos album is not very good, as the singer lacks some strength.
Labels: Crawford Seeger, listening
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