String Quartet 1931 (Crawford Seeger)
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Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet (1931) is "regarded as one of the finest modernist works of the genre".[1] It was funded by the Guggenheim Foundation and written in the spring of 1931, during Crawford's time in Berlin. It was first published in the New Music Edition in January 1941.[2]
Overview
The composition is in four untitled movements:
- Rubato assai
- Leggiero
- Andante
- Allegro possibile
String Quartet 1931 is Crawford's most frequently performed, recorded, and analyzed work. It has been regarded as a collection of experimental procedures she developed during the previous two years, including dissonant counterpoint, early serial techniques, formal symmetries, and number centricity. [3][4] By some criteria, it is considered a more conservative work, with its traditional instrumentation and four-movement formal scheme.
Each of its four movements is built upon its own structural concept, while the motives and focal elements unify them as one piece. The first movement is the only movement of the quarter for which a major draft survives. Crawford's manuscript from 1931 can be found at the Library of Congress. [5]
The first movement features a polyphonic framework using linear formations that are subjected to various contrapuntal operations: contrary (for inversion), crab (for retrograde), and basic transposition. The goal of Crawford's contrapuntal style was to produce independence among the different parts to produce "heterophony." In this movement, she uses principles of verse form for the opening and closing sections, such as rhyme and repetition. Crawford's uses a "poem" to frame the movement, but regularly introduces new beat groups so that it is unpredictable and energetic. The movement could be described as "ametric." Her methods suggest serial procedures [6], but she not see her themes as rows with fixed pitch contents. In the draft score, she marked sections where she reshaped the material. [5]
The second movement has been the least analyzed. It uses five motives that are manipulated through the reordering of the intervals and constant shifting of rhythmic patterns to different parts of the beat. A unifying element of this movement is the imitation of rhythmic motives, which persists in throughout the movement in 2
4meter. Dynamics are used in a similar manner as in the first movement, and reinforce musical effects created by the rhythm and melodic motives. [2]
The main melody of the third movement gives rise to harmonic effects that are characteristic of Crawford's customary melodic practices. The melody is split into two large sections, the first ascending in slow arches, and the second rapidly descending to its starting point. The third movement was the first work recorded as part of the New Music Quarterly Recordings. In a letter to Charles Ives to persuade him to finance the recording, Henry Cowell wrote, "As to the value of the Crawford Quartet, I think it is without question the best movement for quartet that any American has written, and I would rather hear it than almost anything I can think of." [7]
The fourth is the most widely discussed movement out of the whole piece. It is organized according to a pre-composed numerical plan, where the theme is subjected to a series of transformations. [6] Crawford’s favorite serial operations involve systematic permutation and transpositions, which can be heard in this movement. (11) The first violin's unrestrained melody is played against a strictly serialized melody played by the other three instruments. In some analyses, the orderly-patterned serial voice is regarded as more “rational” and “masculine”, while the first violin’s individuality is more “assertive” and “feminine”. [7]
Composition
After beginning her studies in composition with Charles Seeger in 1929, Crawford became more focused on the contrapuntal procedures in her music, as seen in the string quartet. She had promised an orchestral work to the Guggenheim foundation, but abandoned the project after two weeks of frustration.
In the winter of 1931, despite Seeger's advice to avoid string compositions to "prevent the development of Romantic tendencies", she decided on a string quartet.[8] She had wanted to write one in the spring of 1930, but Seeger had discouraged her at the time.
In a letter to Seeger in February 1931, she wrote,
“I went to the piano and began a one-voiced something in metric form and was rather pleased with it...The next day I took the little monody, which is lyric, and gave it a leggiero pal with a bass voice, and it insisted on becoming a string quartet. 1 have been wanting to write one for months—you tried to dissuade me last Spring, but the desire has come again many times this fall, so 1 might as well get it out. And the music came more easily, and after these six months of almost complete silence, it is such a relief. You did it. You pulled me up. You freed me.” [8]
The letter introduces “metric form”, which gives general context to the opening of the first movement. Metric form was a concept that Crawford inherited from Seeger. He explained that, “Music…can be given what may be called ‘verse-form’ that is modelled on poetry.” [5]
In her letters to Seeger, Crawford was stuck between expressing assertions of independence and reaffirming its opposite. Some days, she would make a “declaration of independence”, and others she would cry for her “dear idol Charlie.” By the time she was done with the second movement, Seeger wrote an enthusiastic letter back about the new piece. Despite her claims about how much she needed Seeger, she had written her best work without him. In contrast to her earlier compositions, such as the Diaphonic Suites, which she called “ours”, she never indicated anything of that sort regarding the string quartet. [8]
She finished the quartet in Paris on June 13, 1931, and sent it out to the Guggenheim Foundation.
In 1938, she began the process of rewriting the third movement of the quartet. The third movement's climax (mm. 68-75) was not present in the 1931 version but was added several years later, as seen in the 1941 published version. [9]
Performance and Reception
Henry Cowell was no doubt Crawford's biggest advocate. In 1934, Cowell recorded the third movement of Crawford's string quartet, the only recording of her music that was released during her lifetime. In 1941, he published all four movements of the string quartet. [10]
After its first performance by the New World String Quartet on November 13, 1922, the work was proclaimed "original and arresting", and the third movement was singled out as "remarkable." [8]
On December 1, 1933, the New World Quartet recorded the third movement, Andante, on a twelve-inch shellac disc at Capital Sound Studios, where six hundred records were pressed.
In 1934, the third movement, now recorded, was choreographed by Betty Horst and premiered on May 28 at a gala affair.
Assessment were starting to reach a consensus regarding the discourse on serialism. Musicologist Carol J. Oja characterized the quartet as "prefiguring subsequent total serialism in the USA." [11]
String Quarter 1931 received a lot of attention in the 1960s, when George Perle published the first analysis of the third and fourth movements. [8] He wrote of Crawford's contributions to atonal and serial practices,
"The String Quartet 1931 of Ruth Crawford is an original and inventive work whose numerous 'experimental' features in no way detract from its spontaneity, freshness, and general musicality...In some respects serial procedures are suggested." [12]
After hearing news about SQ being recorded, Perle and many others anticipated its release. The first complete recording on the Columbia Masterworks label appeared in 1961. The composer Eric Salzman wrote an enthusiastic review of the Amati Quartet’s recording, titled “Distaff Disk. Ruth Seeger’s Work Ahead of Its Era” [13]
By default, Seeger played a significant role in sustaining her reputation as a composer. In 1960, he collaborated with CBS Records to produce the first complete recording of the String Quartet 1931. When doing so, he deliberately kept his influence on her work out of it. [8]
The piece was reissued in the 1970s because of the cultural activity associated with the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, and a revival of national interested in American classical music. The cultural feminist movement also contributed to its reemergence.
This attention changed the way Crawford’s children regarded their mother’s composition, to some degree. Peggy said,
“I don’t understand how the woman that I knew as a mother created something like the 1931 string quartet. It is like someone crying; it is like someone beating on the walls…and I don’t want to think about this as regarding my mother because my mother always seemed to me to have it all together, to have gotten a life that pleased her.” [8]
In 1973, a recording of String Quartet 1931, performed by the Composers Quartet, was released on the Nonesuch label, along with quartets by George Perle and Milton Babbitt. Many New York critics praised it and linked it to contemporary trends. John Rockwell wrote in High Fidelity that it was striking how her techniques anticipated later movements, particularly Elliott Carter's independent part-writing and metrical explorations. [14]
String Quartet 1931 continued to bolster Crawford's reputation as a composer. In 1975, the third movement was performed by the New York Philharmonic at a highly publicized concert. The concert showcased female composers and was sponsored by a feminist publishing collective for Ms. (magazine). [12]
In 1981, Jeannie Pool organized the First National Congress on Women and Music, with Crawford as a focal point. Pool recalls, “I decided the best thing to do was anchor the whole conference around Ruth Crawford Seeger. She was a major composer, and her String Quartet 1931 was a pivotal work done by a woman. If we anchored the conference there, then I would have the ability to present the new works, the new string quartets on her shoulders.” [15]
The late 1900s witnessed important developments for female composers. The coverage shifted somewhat, so that String Quartet 1931 was no longer the only piece on which Crawford’s historical position was based.
Prior to the 1980s, there had been no mention of Charles Seeger’s contributions to Crawford’s development. Seeger had been acknowledge for his article on “dissonant counterpoint”, [16] and while it was known that he had been her mentor, there had been no connections between his article and her compositional style. In 1986, Mark Nelson analyzed Crawford’s String Quartet with regards to Seeger’s theories, [17] as did David Nicholls in his book about American experimental music in 1990. [18]
Joseph Straus links the piece to a renewed appreciation of modernism in general, specifically in relation to integral serialism. He said that Crawford had “understood the potential isomorphism of pitch and rhythm and in that sense, had ‘serialized the rhythm’ of the piece”, but the rhythms were not actually serialized in any consistent or systematic way. [19][12] He praised her nonetheless, saying that it happened often enough in her music to clearly suggest that she is aware that those musical motives can be done to both rhythm and pitch.
Sources
- ^ Hisama, Ellie (2006). Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780521028431.
- ^ a b Gaume, Mary Matilda (1973). Ruth Crawford Seeger: Her Life and Works. University Microfilms. p. 147.
- ^ Karpf, Juanita (1992). Tradition and Experimentation: An Analytical Study of Two Diaphonic Suites by Ruth Crawford (1901-1953). University of Georgia. pp. 1–4.
- ^ Tick, Judith (1991). "Ruth Crawford's "Spiritual Concept": The Sound-Ideals of an Early American Modernist, 1924-1930". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 44 (2): 221–261 – via JSTOR.
- ^ a b c Tick, Judith. "Dissonant Counterpoint Revisited: The First Movement of Ruth Crawford's String Quartet 1931," in A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock. Ed. by Richard Crocker, R. Allen Lott and Carol J. Oja. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990, pp. 405–422.
- ^ a b Perle, George. "Atonality and the Twelve-Note System in the United States," in The Score. Vol. 27, July 1960, pp. 51–66.
- ^ a b Straus, Joseph N (2003). The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger. Cambridge University Press. pp. 158–183, 206–226. ISBN 9780521548182.
- ^ a b c d e f g Tick, Judith (2000). Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music. Oxford University Press. pp. 154–253. ISBN 9780195350197.
- ^ Hisama, Ellie. 1995. "The Question of Climax in Ruth Crawford's String Quartet, Mvt. 3." In Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945, edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann, 285-312. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
- ^ Davidian, Teresa (2000). "From Crawford to Cage: Parallels and Transformations". The Musical Quarterly. 84 (4): 664–695 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Oja, Carol J. "The USA, 1918-45,” in Modern Times: From World War I to the Present, ed. Robert P. Morgan (Prentice Hall, 1994), 213.
- ^ a b c Tick, Judith (2001). "Ruth Crawford Seeger's Different Tunes". Newsletter - Institute for Studies in American Music. pp. 1–15.
- ^ Salzman, Eric (April 16, 1961). "DISTAFF DISK; Ruth Seeger's Work Ahead of Its Era". The New York Times. p. 13. New York Times. 16 April 1961.
- ^ Rockwell, John, review of recording by the Composers Quartet, Nonesuch H71280 in High Fidelity Magazine, July 1973.
- ^ Interview With Jeannie Pool by Judith Tick 30 November 1999.
- ^ Seeger, Charles (1930). "On Dissonant Counterpoint". Modern Music. 7 (4): 25–31.
- ^ Nelson, Mark D. (1986). "In Pursuit of Charles Seeger's Heterophonic Ideal: Three Palindromic Works by Ruth Crawford". The Musical Quarterly. 72 (4): 458–475 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Nicholls, David (1990). American Experimental Music 1890-1940. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521424646.
- ^ Straus, "Ruth Crawford's Serialism,” unpublished speech, Cornell University, 26 October 1992.