George Crumb

Born in 1929 in Charleston (West Virginia, usa). He studied at the Illinois University with Eugene Weigel, in Berliner Hochschule für Musik with Boris Blacher and at the Michigan University with Ross Lee Finney. He received the scholarships of many foundations: Elizabeth Croft in Berkshire Music Centre (1955), Fullbright (1955­56), Rockefeller (1964), Guggenheim (1967 and 1973), Fromm (1973) and Ford (1976), as well as the National Institute for Arts and Letters (1967). In the years 1964­65 he collaborated as a composer-in-residence with the Buffalo Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Since 1965 until his retirement in 1997 Crumb was a Professor at the Pennsylvania University in Philadelphia.
For his artistic and pedagogical activity, Crumb has been awarded numerous prizes, e.g. the Pulitzer Prize (for Echoes of Time and the River; 1968), unesco International Composers1 Rostrum (1971), the Koussevitzky Recording Award (1971), and the Cannes Classical Award (1998). In 2001 he received a Grammy Award for the best contemporary composition (Star-Child).
Since 1975 George Crumb has been a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a honorary member of Deutsche Akademie der Künste, as well as a doctor honoris causa of six universities.

Selected works: Three Early Songs for voice and piano (1947), Sonata for Cello (1955), Variazioni for large orchestra (1959), Madrigals, Books I­II (1965), Eleven Echoes of Autumn (Echoes I) for violin, alto flute, clarinet and piano (1966), Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II) for orchestra (1967), Songs, Drones and Refrains of Death for baritone and amplified instrumental ensemble (1968), Night of the Four Moons for alto, flute, banjo, electric cello and percussion (1969), Madrigals, Books III­IV (1969), Black Angels (Images I) for electric string quartet (1970), Ancient Voices of Children for mezzo-soprano, treble and ensemble (1970), Vox Balaenae for electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano (1971), Makrokosmos, Volume I­II for amplified piano (1972­73), Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III) for two amplified pianos and percussion (1974), Dream Sequence (Images II) for violin, cello, piano, percussion and glass harmonica (1976), Star-Child for soprano, children voices, male choir, bells and large orchestra (1977), Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV) for amplified piano (four hands) (1979), String Trio (1982), Pastoral Drone for organ (1982), Processional for piano (1983), The Sleeper for soprano and piano (1984), An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III) for amplified flute and percussion (1986), Federico1s Little Songs for Children for soprano, flutes and harp (1986), Zeitgeist (Tableaux Vivants) for two amplified pianos (1988), Easter Dawning for carillon (1991), Quest for guitar and chamber ensemble (1994), Mundus Canis for guitar and percussion (1998), Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik for amplified piano (2001), ...Unto the Hills for voice, amplified piano and percussion quartet (2002), Otherwordly Resonances for two amplified pianos (2002).

Dream Sequence (Images II)
The meditative nature of Dream Sequence is apparent in the first words of the score: OPoised, timeless, breathing, as an afternoon in late summer1. Always present, while quiet, glass harmonica chord, delicate vibrations of piano sounds (with sheets of paper lying on the strings), as well as percussion effects (pppp sempre) ­ create delicate shadings of colour which magically complement the sounds of the other instruments. However, it is the violin and cello that eventually dominate Dream Sequence, playing concertino to the ripieno of the piano, percussion and off-stage harmonica. Playing brief, antiphonal, ever-varied phrases, always closely responding to one another, they create the colourful embroidery of the sound tapestry that constitutes the work.
Dream Sequence evokes in its psychological effect something akin to an actual dream, where fugitive, wispy images seem to drift in and out of the consciousness, assuming subtly varied shapes with each recurrence. At one, and only one moment in the Osequence1 of images does the sleeper seem roused to semi-wakefulness (announced by sudden, sharp forte passages in the piano); the music then relapses gradually to deep somnolence with the concluding Ocicada-drone1 music.
David Burg