b. 1929 American composer Crumb studied with Boris Blacher (1903–75) and Ross Lee Finney (1906–97). A strong identification with the writer García Lorca is reflected in the surreal, otherworldly soundscapes he has composed (Ancient Voices of Children, 1970). To create these he used unusual performance instructions, such as playing woodwind instruments with thimbles. Crumb also has an inclination ...
and rota-toms, are not as unusual as they once were. New non-electronic instrumental in-ventions have had a certain amount of cult success. Composers such as Harry Partch (1901–74), George Crumb (b. 1929) and John Cage (1912–92) invented countless instruments of their own, and others such as Conlon Nancarrow (1912–97) explored the potential of a single instrument, in his ...
The story of classical music is not bound up simply with the traditions of any one country: it is tied up with the cultural development of Europe as a whole. This section attempts to pick out the composers from each successive age who, looked at from one point of view, exerted the greatest influence on their contemporaries and subsequent ...
100. Recommended Recording: Concerto for Orchestra, Violin Concerto, Three Occasions, Ole Böhn, London Sinfonietta (cond) Oliver Knussen (EMI/Warner) Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities | George Crumb | Contemporary | Classical ...
the past. In the USA, Elliott Carter (b. 1908) is an unapologetic modernist still composing music of bracing vigour in his nineties, while the eclectic scores of George Crumb (b. 1929) seem to have absorbed the music of a vast number of cultures, uniting them in music of exquisite poetry that is possibly unmatched in recent times. There ...
, movement and gesture. ‘Music theatre’, as this hybrid genre came to be described, attracted not only Ligeti, Kagel and Luciano Berio (1925–2003), but also the American George Crumb (b. 1929) and the British composers Harrison Birtwistle (b. 1934) and Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934). Music in the ‘Global Village’ The pluralism in evidence in the late 1960s and ...
clothed became almost as important as the music itself. In the States, Rick Griffin’s mind-blowing artwork graced the sleeves of LPs by The Grateful Dead; rising underground cartoonist Robert Crumb designed the cover for Big Brother’s Cheap Thrills (1968), while in the UK Martin Sharpe’s day-glo designs decorated sleeves for Cream. Tired of screaming girls who did not listen to ...
Wagner had first encountered the early thirteenth-century romance Parzivâl by Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1170–c. 1220) in 1845 and frequently returned to the subject in the course of the decades that followed, completing the libretto in 1877 and the music in 1882. By now his views had changed, and the text and its imagery are permeated by the Aryan ...
Next to The Beatles, Bob Dylan was the most influential artist of his generation, writing and performing songs whose poetic, sometimes-abstract, often-philosophical lyrics of astute commentary and therapeutic introspection spoke to the masses during an era of social unrest, political upheaval and radical change. While cross-pollinating folk and country with electric rock, Dylan elevated the ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1957) The daughter of a coal miner, Loveless took her stage name from her first husband, Terry Lovelace, drummer with the Wilburn Brothers, with whom she toured. In 1985, after the marriage crumbled, she moved to Nashville and her first Top 10 single, ‘If My Heart Had Windows’ (1988), ...
A basic line-up of drums, bass and two guitars, sometimes augmented by a piano or a saxophone – this was the blueprint for the 500 or so bands who, staying faithful to the spirit and material of classic rock’n’roll, and to many obscure R&B songs, invigorated the pop scene in and around Liverpool between 1958 and ...
Led Zeppelin had spent the first half of the decade turning themselves into the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world. Not even the onslaught of punk could see them fail to sell out Knebworth on two weekends running in 1979. But they had a long way to fall, and a series of bad-luck events saw the Led Zeppelin empire crumble. ...
In the first part of the seventeenth century, two traditions of absolute power were struggling to maintain their hold. In England, after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the Stuart dynasty fought for survival for 40 years. Then the dream crumbled in the face of civil war and the execution of the king, Charles I, ...
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