A Personal Musical Introduction to George Crumb

In 1997, New York University presented George Crumb’s composition Vox Balaenae (1971) for electric flute, cello and amplified piano at an on-campus performance, preceded by a talk with the composer. This was my first personal interaction with Crumb and his musical style and thought. It was also the beginning of a twenty-four-year influence that he and his music has had on my musical development. During the talk with Crumb, audience members were invited to ask him questions about his technique. I raised my hand and asked for his thoughts on improvisation: ‘What is your opinion regarding the use of improvisation in your concert works?’. As an improvisor and composer, unfamiliar with Crumb’s liberal style of sophisticated notation at that time, my impression was that much of Vox Balaenae’s character must have been at least informed by improvisational practice. With its amorphous metres and unpredictable patterns, Vox Balaenae sounded to me in performance almost like a jazz piece! However, George Crumb responded to my question by stating that he believed that there really isn’t any specific need for improvisation or aleatory in this work and that all of these techniques work just fine as notated music within the score. To me, his observation was just as intriguing as it was paradoxical. How could such a spontaneous music restrict itself to notational conventions? What aspects of performance practice were needed to successfully interpret George Crumb’s music that could make it seem like an improvisation? What kind of music notation could create this sort of effect? Contemporary Western musical notation is an incredibly complex language with thousands of graphic symbols, geometric and symmetrical functions, and a highly Contemporary Music Review, 2022 Vol. 41, No. 1, 1–3, https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2022.2033565