Crumb Mythification

George Crumb's Channels of Mythification
Author(s): Victoria Adamenko

Source: American Music, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 324-354
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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VICTORIA ADAMENKO
George Crumb's Channels

of Mythification
Music tends to be mythological, at least some of it.

Some of my music is mythological just in expression.
People tell me that it has that sense sometimes--ancient.
George Crumb, from a December 9, 1997,
interview at Rutgers University
George Crumb's fascination with mythology has not previously been

specifically addressed, although since the 1970s, when he wrote the largescale works that brought him fame--Ancient Voices of Children, Black Angels (both 1970), Vox Balaenae (1971), and Makrokosmos I-III (1972-74)--the
lexis of the critical essays on Crumb has included references to magic,1

mythic characters, and mythic time. Evidently, this perception stemmed
from two major components of Crumb's style. First, the provocative titles,
program notes, character designations, and other verbal comments by the
composer convey his interest in the mythological. Second, of course, is the
sound matter itself-a bricolage of unusual timbres, spell-like recitations,

counting in multiple languages, and other sound effects that invoke the
"supernatural." These very elements stirred some criticism among a few
commentators who refused to take Crumb's "spooky effects" seriously.
A native of Moscow, Russia, Victoria Adamenko received her Ph.D. in musicology
from Rutgers University in 2000; her dissertation was titled "Neo-Mythologism
in Twentieth-Century Music." She has taught at the University of West Florida;
previously she has been published in Journal of Musicological Research, Music
Research Forum, The Organ Encyclopedia, the European Journal for Semiotic Studies,
and Semiotica 2001, and she has given papers in Helsinki, Seattle, Montreal, and
elsewhere.
American Music Fall 2005
@ 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
George Crumb's Channels of Mythification 325

The composer then was rebuked for "lack of musical substance" and a
"tightly circumscribed use of primary material" behind the superficial
and programmatic effects, and derided for a lack of "intellectual inter-
est" or "appeal to the senses."2 These disapprovals echoed the ideals

of modernism, when a direct appealing to the senses by experimenting with timbres and orchestral colors was condemned as shallow unless it submitted to rational structural procedures with timbres-such
as Klangfarbenmelodie. To the disappointment of those who expected to
find a rationale behind Crumb's novel "effects," he repeatedly insisted
that these novelties were merely products of "a composer's whimsy,"3
"purely fanciful."4 Unsurprisingly, the syncretism of Crumb's conception was overlooked from the rationalist premises that value abstract
coherence.
It did not take long for traditional pitch-class set analysts to come to
Crumb's defense and to demonstrate his ability to integrate and rigorously treat his materials.5 The results of these analyses are helpful, but
they may be even more beneficial for a fuller comprehension of Crumb's
world if combined with a broader cultural approach. I suggest that several "channels of mythification" are detectable in Crumb's work-numerology, syncretism, symbolization, archaism, ritualism, and universalizing of the structural components of language and formal design. These
"channels" are interrelated; they frequently overlap, and they certainly
resist being defined by a single "-ism" term. Mythification penetrates
different aspects of Crumb's creativity: philosophy, aesthetics, the choice
of poetic text, musical language, form, and notation. For instance, the
tendency for symbolization in Crumb's aesthetics is connected to his
"symbolic notation," which, in its turn, relates to the cyclic and symmetrical designs of form, dynamics, and pitch organization.
Crumb's emphasis on the "universals of music" calls for an application
of Claude Levi-Strauss's analysis of myth, while the composer's reliance
on the symbolic and the "pre-reflective" archetypes may be viewed as
a manifestation of twentieth-century "neo-mythologism." The latter is
presented in the studies of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics, lin-
guistics, and criticism-in particular, of Eleazar Meletinsky (b. 1918),

Zara Minz (1927-87), Yuri Lotman (1922-93), Boris A. Uspenski (b. 1927),
and Vladimir Toporov.6 I will first survey features of the mythic thought
that are outlined in these methodological paradigms that are relevant

to Crumb's work (whose mutually complementary nature allows us
to disregard their systemic borderlines), and then examine individual
"channels" of Crumb's mythification. The analytical focus will be on
Ancient Voices of Children and Black Angels as exemplary works that represent the tendency but not exhaust it.
Levi-Strauss argued that repetitiveness and symmetry are "elementary

molds" of structuring, universally pertinent to the human mindset, which
326
Adamenko
reveal themselves in myth-making.7 Mythic time is not only circular,

cyclic, and recurrent; it has also been described as timeless-that is, a
"time before time," when the "first event" took place, and the model for
consequent events was established. In connection to the reactualization

of the precedent, relation of reason and consequence are replaced by
repetition and reiteration. Such ideas as repetition, symmetry, and opposition may be considered, to a certain degree, apart from stylistic differences and historical evolution. Levi-Strauss noted that such universal
patterns of structuring are not "pre-ordained and inflexible structures,

but rather molds from which are produced forms that turn up as entities
without being obliged to remain identical."8 He used these "molds" as

a basis for comparative analyses of music and myth. Toporov attributed four possible forms of symmetrical transformations: "movement,"
"antimovement," "mirror movement," and "mirror antimovement" to
the Paleolithic period of myth making.9 Others point to repetitions or
symmetrical structures within mythic texts typically containing slight
combinatorial changes, as evidence of myth's propensity for collecting
variants of the same idea.10
The structures of symmetrical concentric circles and inversions are

typical of the mythic cosmos. This is illustrated most clearly by the mythologem of the circle in its various manifestations (mandala, anima mun-
di).11 A mythologem, according to the Tartu-Moscow school, is a symbol

with a virtually unlimited spectrum of meanings, a "sign of all," to use
Minz's expression.12 The mythologem of the circle, for example, is rich
with associations and particularly evocative of "all"-hence its use in

ritual plates, discs, and bowls, and its many meanings, from the idea
of eternal return to the embracing structure of the universe.13 Another
widely spread mythologem is that of the world tree-the all-embracing and symmetrical structure that symbolically represents the whole
cosmos.
The scholars of the Tartu-Moscow school observed that, although a

restoration of mythic thought in its totality is impossible from the posi-
tion of modern culture, nevertheless, many fragments of that thought

were resurrected in twentieth-century artistic creations. One example is
number symbolism. The time-honored mythification and sacralization
of certain numbers and operations with them has been due to their role
in creation myths. In many cosmologies, each number had a unique

meaning attached to it. Numbers in archaic myths "were connected to
each other not mathematically, but rather symbolically, associatively,
aesthetically, and mnemonically."14 In the twentieth century, Toporov
wrote,
a tendency to return semantic significance back to numbers is being
realized in the arts and poetry-the realm that serves as a sanctu-

ary for the achievements of archaic epochs. .... Archaic numerical
notions continue their life in the modern creative mind; moreover,
those notions undergo development and transformation, as they
serve again and again as nascent material for the new myth-poetical
images and concepts.15
Meletinsky argued that the emergence of twentieth-century "neo-mythologism" was largely due to the works of Carl Jung (1875-1961), which,
via mythic symbols, established a bridge between the archaic and the
modern, the collective and the individual. Jung argued that various
numerological structures and symbols often used in myths "not only
express order, they create it,"16 following the ultimate goal of creation
myths. Meletinsky emphasized that a "conscious appropriation of an
unconscious discovery" is characteristic of new-mythologism; as he
concluded:
Jungian psychoanalysis, with its universalizing and metaphorical

interpretation of the unconscious play of the imagination, presented
a certain trampoline for a huge leap from the psychology of an alien-
ated or oppressed modem individual to the pre-reflexive psychology

of archaic society.17
The turn to prereflective psychology is aimed at achieving wholeness

(i.e., the "healing" of the fragmented personality, in Jungian terms). In
mythic consciousness, the idea of syncretism is inseparable from medicinal function.18 The past is viewed in myths as the time of primordial unity,
when many currently disparate elements were fused together, including

languages and the arts. Thus wholeness can be attained through ritual
and its symbolic forms.
Neo-mythologism via Jung

Crumb has mentioned owning Jung's books.19 Both the direct and the me-
diated influence of Jung's ideas on Crumb are possible, since the mandala
and other Jungian archetypes are also discernable in Lorca's poetry--one
of the acknowledged sources for Crumb's own poetics.20 Crumb, from
his position as a late modernist composer, expressed a longing for the
archetypal. Consider his well-known comment about Lorca's poetry:
I feel that the essential meaning of this poetry is concerned with

the most primary things: life, death, love, the smell of the earth, the
sounds of the wind and the sea. These ur-concepts are embodied
in a language which is primitive and stark, but which is capable of
infinitely subtle nuance.21
The composer's fascination with "the ur-concepts" (the archetypal topics

of poetry), and the archaic or "primitive" language in which they are
328
Adamenko
expressed, may be rooted in the rediscovery of the "archaic remnants"

(a term Jung borrowed from Freud). These, according to Jung, reveal
themselves in modern thought through dreams or artistic creations.
Analyzing both, Jung discerned images-chiefly visual sacred symbols,
such as the cross and magic circle (mandala)-that were typologically
similar to those found in archaic myths, collective in their nature and
origin, "emanating from primeval dreams and creative fantasies."22 Jung
specifically studied his patients' night dreams and compared them to

myths. Night dream is also a realm of imagery typical of Crumb, expressed in such pieces as Night Music (1963, rev. 1976), Dream Sequence
(1976), and others. From the perspective of Jungian thought, it is not
surprising that Mandala was a projected title for one of Crumb's unrealized compositions, as he admitted. When asked if any of his circles were
associated with mandala, the symbol typical for Eastern religions, he
said, "I was thinking of things associated with mandala while working
on a piece that was never completed. I sketched this piece and used the
word Mandala as the title."23Although Crumb never realized his Mandala
project, some of his other "circle-music" scores, upon closer examination,
show their connection to mandala as an archetypal idea. The Sanskrit

word mandala means circle, and Crumb's work displays an abundance
of circular forms both explicit (through notation) and implicit (through
palindromic structures).
Neo-mythological "conscious appropriation of unconscious discoveries," in Crumb's case, may very well have been based on his continuous
reading from mythology. As Crumb indicated, his interest in mythology
draws more from an idiosyncratic worldview than actual mythic narratives or characters: "My music is not programmatic in the nineteenthcentury sense of this word. [The use of myths] is not literal, [but is] a
part of my thinking."24 In the 1997 interview, Crumb portrayed himself
as someone familiar with different mythological traditions, from Greek

to Norse, finding inspiration in standard texts on the subject:
I have Edith Hamilton's book on Greek mythology. I have read that

book: she is very good on the myths! These are retellings of the
myths in a very concise way. She also has a short book on Norse
mythology. She has also written The Way of the Greeks, which is one of
the greatest books ever written. ... There is another writer, Bulfinch,
who has a book called World Mythology, which I read, and looked
through some other books by him.25
Crumb's approach to myth also involves what Meletinsky ascribed to

neo-mythologism as "the universalizing and metaphorical ... play of
the imagination," demonstrably so in Ancient Voices of Children. Here,
Crumb testified to referring to an imaginary Indian Ghost Dance, which
he described as "an ancient mythological dance-I used it just as a title

[in movement IV], referring to a mysterious character, after reading about
it in one of the books on Indian mythology."26 In the context of a Garcia
Lorca work such as Ancient Voices the reference to the Indian Ghost Dance
is a universalizing gesture.
Crumb's predilection for symmetry, which he himself acknowledged,27
in combination with his idiosyncratic fondness for the "child theme" and
the idea of circular notation, may all be interpreted in Jungian terms as

an attempt to achieve personal wholeness through mandala symbolism.
Jungian theory links the depths of the psyche (unconsciousness in a
dream), individual wholeness (holy, or healed state of the psyche), the
archetype of the child ("who knows as yet of no conflict," the symbol
of wholeness), and roundness (one of the forms expressing the idea of
wholeness; a "sacred precinct where all the split-parts of the personality
are united").28 Crumb's employment of circular notation and circular
structuring in association with the child theme matches Jung's description of the child archetype as "a symbol... capable of numerous transfor-
mations ... : it can be expressed by roundness, the circle or sphere. .... It

is not surprising that so many mythological saviors are child gods."29
The significance of the figure of the child in Crumb's works (Star-Child
and Ancient Voices of Children, for example) matches Jungian denotation
of the child archetype as "unifying the opposites; a mediator, bringer

of healing, that is, one who makes whole." At the same time, the idea
of wholeness, according to Jung, can be best expressed by a circle.30
The circle would then represent "the total being." To achieve this, one
must be healed: "The descent into the depths ... of utter unconsciousness in our dream ... will bring healing." These notions-deep levels of
psyche, dream, child, circle, and the idea of wholeness-are also parts
of Crumb's own rhetoric regarding his artistic philosophy. Crumb noted
that "a strong initial conception for a piece of music must come from
deep within the psyche. A composer draws on this source according to an
urgent need to express. If a composer remains true to himself, I feel that
stylistic consistency would follow naturally [emphasis mine]."31 That

Crumb acknowledges deep psychic levels of a composer's creativity and
relates it to individual wholeness, or the inner integrity of a composer, is
comparable to the role outlined by Jung of the mandala as an "archetype

of wholeness," and its ability to "put together apparently irreconcilable
opposites and bridge over apparently hopeless splits."32
The Jungian model, according to which the archetypal images are autonomously available to each individual psyche, is apparent in Crumb's
declared independence from any historical sources and from the influence of immediate predecessors who had used these archetypal images.
From his testimony, it would seem that he conceived of his graphic notation by turning directly to the archetypal "ur-forms" rather than to any
historical models: "I was told later about the circular scores of the Renais-
330
Adamenko
sance and the Baroque; at the time I used this kind of notation I did not
know any historical [circular] scores."33 This is, indeed, surprising, given
that Ross Lee Finney (1906-97), Crumb's professor of composition at the

University of Michigan from 1953 to 1955, employed circular notation
in his Spherical Madrigals (1947) for a cappella choir (see Example 1).
Although the seven texts used in Spherical Madrigals deal with the sym-
bolism of a circle, only the first madrigal, printed on the cover page, is
presented as a circle. Nevertheless, the mythologem of a circle is exploited
throughout Spherical Madrigals by other, nongraphic, means: the use of

rounded, inverted, and mirror forms, canons, and poetry that expresses
the symbolism of a circle. The circularly notated madrigal looks more like
a fancy cover decoration of the score than an independent piece. It is in

canon form, as are many circularly scored compositions of the Renaissance and the Baroque that appear to be the prototypes for this work.
For example, the canon Sive lidum (ca. 1490) by Ramos de Pareja34 has
a structure similar to that of Finney's madrigal, with the four voice entrances marked by the wind-rose. Not surprisingly, Crumb's own pieces
such as Crucifixus and Agnus Dei, from Makrokosmos I-II, resonate with
earlier prototypes-for instance, a "graphically" notated canon Clama ne
cesses (1611) by Stich von Wolfg.35 One might infer that Crumb learned
the idea of modeling on early circular notation from Finney. However,
Crumb denies the influence of his professor in this matter, claiming that
Example 1. Ross Lee Finney, Spherical Madrigals (1947), cover page. @ 1965 Henmar Press Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Vie
44 1 o #

he had neither seen Spherical Madrigals nor ever discussed the issues of
"graphic notation" with his teacher at the time he started to write his
circular scores.36 Moreover, by 1963, when Crumb composed his first
circular score (Night Music), circular scores had been written by Karlheinz
Stockhausen (Refrain, 1959), Roland Kayn (Galaxis, 1962), and, in the same
year, Ladislav Kupkovic (" ... "for bass clarinet or cello solo). Despite that,
Crumb insists that he reinvented the idea of circular notation in his own
way: "I knew Stockhausen's Refrain before I did any of my own circular
works, but his work was not a direct influence on me. I use a different
principle when drawing my scores."37

The symbolism of the archetypal figures that Crumb chose-circle,
arch, cross, and spiral-relates to his definition of myths as "generalizations or symbolic representations of the things that are happening or
have happened in history [emphasis mine]."38 Not a practicing believer,
Crumb explained the role of mythic and religious attributes in his works
as cultural symbols.39 Notably, every fourth movement (the 4th, 8th,

and 12th) in Crumb's Makrokosmos I and II are also subtitled "Symbol."
These Crumb "symbols," or the works of symbolic notation, certainly
contribute to the "mythological expression" of his work. As is expected
of symbols, they puzzle the viewer, who is thus offered hints to a wide
array of meanings traditionally associated with these archetypal images.40
Performing from such a score means transforming it from "a thing in

itself" into "a thing for us," and thus inevitably presents a technical
problem. This is probably most easily resolved by memorizing the piece
in question. However, rotating the score during a performance would be
a special action to recall the mysterious movements of a shaman during
a ritual, using tools and gestures that are most extraordinary in the eyes
of the noninitiated. Some performers may prefer to cut the score and
paste it in an easily readable version. This act would only prove that the
world of mythic imagination, with its cyclic time and symbolic space,
is not exactly compatible with our world of linear reading, measured in
conventional categories of time and space.
The Mythologem of the Circle in Ancient Voices of Children

The figure of the circle in the central movement of The Ancient Voices
of Children (Example 2), subtitled Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle, remains
multivalent in its meaning and open for interpretation, as the following

exchange illustrates. I asked the composer, "Is the circular notation [of
the Ancient Voices of Children] connected in your mind with the ideas of
reincarnation, changes of seasons, and other symbolic meanings that

different mythological traditions attach to the figure of a circle?"
He answered, "It is connected to all of those things."41

This universal gesture by the composer corresponds to the indefinite
332
Adamenko
Example 2. George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children, a fragment from movement
3. @ 1971 C. F. Peters Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
SOW, eaw?r
kriur
'd
matd
. .. . . .. :
/ ~ ZA2 -i;J
II.EM , I , -L- fL d lr i l , ,'
A3 L44 Wo o-W t 496 ikC1 ~ f 60L toC pwdw
' ..".. ::.', ". DANCE OF THE "...... " ..........
1-;%.W
;I "';"*Ibi~r
" SACRED kOM)
LIFE-CYCLE"a..,[:/:...t.;
,,-
--
Y_.
icil~lm
M4
- -:ul?~ucu-c fkr? .- .1 , ,!
AW
4044
catem
40& "IfPW4*ftfP"! w
j cii)~i
~?i,.-
array of meaning offered by the mythologem of a circle. It may very

well include the psychoanalytical notion of "symbiotic orbit" between
a mother and a child attributed to Ancient Voices of Children by Ellen
Spitz.42 According to Jung, the rituals involving the mandala treated it
as "an instrument of contemplation ... to aid concentration by narrowing down the psychic field of vision and restricting it to the center."43 In
concordance with this description, Crumb emphasizes the special role of

the circularly notated section (Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle) by making
it the centerpiece of the work's five-movement design.

The poetry of Garcia Lorca-rich with links to archaic myths-clearly served as one of the poetic sources, perhaps the most important, of

Crumb's own ways of mythification.44 Often Lorca's poetry serves as a
generative force; in particular, Crumb considered the words chosen for
the final song of Ancient Voices of Children to be "the creative germ" of
the whole compositional project.45 Crumb himself arranged the verbal

text of this work using selected verses from different Lorca poems. A
brief analysis of the resulting text reveals the multilayered symbolic,
allegoric, and, overall, mythological modus operandi.
In the context of the whole text, the first line, "The little boy was look-
ing for his voice," implies the one-to-one relationship of voice to soul.
This voice/soul is silent:
I do not want it for speaking with:
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence

on his little finger
Here, the mythologem of a ring, also itself a circle, embraces the motives
of eternal recurrence and "echo," the idea that after someone's death his
or her voice continues to live.46 Consider, for example, the Greek myth of
Echo, or Polidor, whose voice told the story of his murder after he died.47
Like the boy "Echo" in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, Lorca's child has
"come from so far away," "from the ridge of hard frost." The motive of the
child's death is present in both Mann's and Lorca's narratives.48 Crumb

selected the text for the middle movement, "From where do you come,
my love, my child?" from the song of Yerma in Lorca's tragedy Yerma
(1934), also loaded with various archaic mythic motives.49 The last line,
"I will go very far ... to ask Christ the Lord to give me back my ancient
soul of a child," corresponds to the motive of the eternal recurrence of
souls. It also invokes the concept of an immortal and unified world soul
(anima mundi), the image of which is also represented as a circle, as seen
in Robert Fludd's Utriusque cosmi (Oppenheim, 1617-21). That the soul of
the dead may be preserved in the voice of a musical instrument is another
archetypal motive of many world mythologies.50 In Lorca's poem, "the

King of the crickets had it" (the child's voice), the soul was retained in the
voice of the cricket. Prolonging the underlying symbolism, in some myths
the cricket or a cicada personified the deity of the dying afternoon (for
example, the Greek myth of the immortal ever-old Tithonus). The next
line of the text (also circular), "Each afternoon in Granada, a child dies each
afternoon" (emphasis mine) is linked to the symbolism of both the cricket
and the ring from the first verse. A cricket that makes music at sunset is
associated with afternoon (allegorically, the afternoon of life, or old age).
Conversely, traditional allegory always presents the newborn child as

"the new day" or "morning of life." "A child dies each afternoon" might
also be understood allegorically: the morning of life dies, the afternoon of
life begins. The circle is now closed. While at the beginning of Crumb's
334
Adamenko
text arrangement the young boy tries to find his voice in the realm of the
"old" cricket, at the end there is a request "to give me back my ancient
soul of a child"-an inversion of the initial "young/old" opposition. The
symbolism of the whole text proves so pregnant with meaning, including
references to known mythic motives, that it supercedes itself as a literary
device and grows into a mythologem.

A comparison of Lorca's poems with Crumb's excerpted selections reveals the composer's concern with circularity. For example, in the fourth
movement, Crumb chose only these two lines that contain an inversion
(found in the translation of the entire sixteen-line poem Gacela V (Del
niiio muetro), from De Divan del Tamarit of 1934):
Each afternoon in Granada,

a child dies each afternoon.
Crumb chose these lines as a subtitle for the movement. While inversion
structure presents circularity in its closed and singular form, refrainbased structures express the idea of circularity in a different fashion-as
an open and a repetitive cycle. According to the composer's instructions
for the score, "both Spanish and English texts should be printed as part
of the program notes." The corresponding lines of the Spanish original
contain a refrain-like repetition:
Todas las tardes en Granada,

Todas las tardes se muere un ni-no.
The idea of repetition is also the governing principle of the musical form
in the central movement of Ancient Voices: the "circle music" is to be
repeated three times, accompanied by an ostinato figure on the percussion. Clearly, Crumb identifies the idea of circularity with the idea of
repetition. Notably, Lorca's poems-the source of Crumb's inspiration
for many of his works-are, in general, rich with repetitions, refrains,
and symmetrical "concentric" inversions. One example is found in Gazela X (De la huida). Crumb borrowed the first five lines for the second
movement of Ancient Voices of Children. In Lorca's poem, lines 4 and 5
reappear in inversion as 14 and 15:
(4) Muchas veces me he perdido por el mar,

(5) Como me pierdo en el coraz6n de algunos nin6s.
(14) Como me pierdo en el coraz6n de algunos nin6s,
(15) me he perdido muchas veces por el mar
Crumb realizes the combinatorial idea (compare Lorca's lines 4 and
15) on the level of musical form and large-scale structure. The beginning
of the first movement contains several elements that return at the end
of the last movement. They reappear either unchanged (the sextuplet

phrase marked fffz-see Examples 3a and 3b), in retrograde (the last
motive-Examples 3c and 3d), or transposed (the repetition of a single
pitch C sharp in the first phrase of the work that becomes C natural at
the end).
Example 3. Fragments from George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children. ? 1971 C.
F. Peters Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

a. From movement 1
b. From the last movement
c. E ndingpofmthe-ast-movemen
Soy ;st.
Bg ~ ~ ~ ~ .___ ------,t-1 ~ j~CIt?.

(Lmor 1i. ) i
O4.
c. Ending of the last movement
(Mart d;stknt)
A-1~-
X&-- 0-~
336
Adamenko
d. Soprano phrase from movement 1
The last movement contains the recurring phrase of the oboe; this
constitutes a recapitulation of somewhat similar material in the first
movement, in the section Dances of the Ancient Earth. Thus Crumb forms
concentric circles on the macro level of structure. Example 4 shows a cer-
tain quality of roundness (which may also be defined as quasi-symmetry)

present on the level of pitch organization within the third movement.
Crumb establishes local tonal centers by either frequent repetition or
longer duration, or accentuation of certain pitches. Their arrangement is
based on the principle of recurrence of some pitch classes, of which the
Example 4. Recurring pitch classes that serve as local tonal centers in movement 3
of Ancient Voices of Children. ? 1971 C. E Peters Corporation. All rights reserved.
Used by permission
m.1
m.2
m.3
m.4 .
m.5
B 123
C123

most prominent is D sharp, but with C and G sharp also recurring." Another instance of circular/symmetric structuring occurs at the beginning
of the last movement. Crumb notated the initial segment as a separate
episode (Example 5a), which contains six chords; of these six, chords
one and six are identical in pitch content (Example 5b), as are chords
two and five (Example 5c). Chords three and four (Example 5d) each
contain two tritones a half-step apart from each other, another instance
of symmetry.
Though symmetry and circularity of structure are present in the other
movements, the central movement-the one that employs circular notation-is most distinctive in this respect. Here, not only the pitch materials,
but more important, the elements of sound and dynamics-Crumbian

primary means of expression52-are also structured circularly/symmetrically. The ostinato pattern of the percussion comes with a characteristic
Example 5. George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children. @ 1971 C. E Peters Corpora-
tion. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

a. Six symmetrically organized chords at the beginning of the final movement
iS (brbS5 b,aL,-s) (at ;,

Gisp.
f~
Crb ! --- 3 --, v.
CYM LIXIS
14 fGL
m ..- - (I=?c. ,,;b-.)
-3-.I
8 .....~
borbcrS
(.50o)
Hdd " .-L4_A. " "..___.. - &,_ .R""

_____-7
or-7
"
-- -- ---- - --
I,,
'Piano
ctre
c....
<'Pe - Sempre) r
v2h:. :------- -. __--- t _- Nilshlil
SCI~t IRIIZ =4t'1?4*_r

wr?..
...
..
.....
...
..
..
4%FI
-d
=1
tp.cl~r
338
Adamenko
b. Chords 1 and 6
c. Chords 2 and 5
d. Chords 3 and 4
"X;N
comment in the score: "Make gradual crescendo to midpoint of circle

music (B2), then a gradual diminuendo to last measure. The whispering
progresses gradually to shouting, then back to whispering." This crescen-
do-decrescendo structure (see Example 6)-explicitly symmetrical-is

yet another version of the circle that is visualized on the same page of
the score. It is one archetype that is conveyed through multifarious appearances-verbal, visual, audible-and through structural and formal
aspects. This archetype is recurrent and cyclic, fixed, yet variable. It
evokes the structural characteristics of mythic time, as it also resonates
with Crumb's philosophical concept of the "timelessness of time."53
The segments (or "phrases," as Crumb calls them) of circle-music vary
in the Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle with each new circle; this is reflected in
the composer's labels Al, A2, and the like. This second type recalls ritual
reenactment of the precedent, repeated each time with modifications.
The composer employs varied rather than literal repetition, applying the
same principle to the form of the whole third movement. He repeats the
transposed version of the soprano's first motive (G sharp-A-D sharp),

but not the initial motive itself, in the last measure.

Example 6. George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children, symmetrical crescendo-decrescendo structure of dynamics in movement 3. O 1971 C. F. Peters Corporation.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
(mtp r.epofi. Z-0moe sawit Fk /wt l sa~ .1of 6"
..Ostin
" o.?-O:
- "..............................................----t.mpo d. .e , N9
......t
,,.;eat7*
-__.=oic -?I
a.=, *-4? "0 rlrrU-?
Ku l
L - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - cre"4ml lb *;Jpw;0wF c?r mo
The connotation of wholeness-associated with both the mythologem of the circle and the mythologem of the world tree-reveals itself
on the level of pitch organization as all twelve pitch classes are present
here. Crumb creates a sound world where all available "niches" of the
chromatic universe of music are present and co-exist within one short
movement. Example 7 contains a chart demonstrating this. The numbers in the left column indicate segments, or phrases of music that are
divided by rests or by means of "graphic notation" in Crumb's score (as
he does not use standard measures). The pitch classes that-due to their
frequency, prolonged rhythmic value or accent-function as local tonal
centers within each segment are notated in the chart as whole notes. The
chart, read from top to bottom, corresponds to the temporal progress of
the piece. The connecting lines between identical pitch classes indicate
their continuity. The recurring pitch classes provide inner coherence to
this picture of chromatic "totality." Crumb never uses all twelve pitches
simultaneously; rather he utilizes various segments of the chromatic
scale.
In Ghost Dance, two interlocking tritones (A-D sharp and G-C sharp)
occur in various forms throughout the piece. The pitch organization
in this movement may be described as permutations of the fixed elements-a whole step, a tritone, and a major third-as a single idea. This
uniformity is in line with traditional mythic thought, which perceived
the world as made from a finite number of elements (such as fire, wa-
ter, earth, and air), reappearing in various combinations. In weaving

his musical fabric, Crumb utilizes permutations of the same intervallic
constructions. They reappear multiple times in inverted and transposed
340
Adamenko
Example 7. A chart demonstrating the twelve pitch classes used in Dance of the
Sacred Life-Cycle.
1
B1
B2
123
m.2
123
m.3
ending
forms. For example, sevenths, ninths, and tritones appear in Dance of the
Sacred Life-Cycle (Example 8 demonstrates permutations of sevenths and

ninths).
Yet another attempt at "wholeness" may be seen in Crumb's polymodality. In the first movement, for example, whole-tone modality is complemented by chromatic modality. Namely, a collection of three whole
steps, divided by a major and a minor third, is gradually built during
the soprano's initial four phrases: the third and the fourth phrases of that
solo outline the collection, in ascending order, G-A-C sharp-D sharp-F

sharp-G sharp. At the end of the soprano solo, chromatic intervals are
introduced-an augmented sixth (ascending, F-D sharp), an augmented

Example 8. Permutations of sevenths and ninths in Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle.
M.7
m.1
m.9
m.1
m.9 ending, Soprano

m.1
>L -reprise
M.7 M.7
m.3
M.7
m.3 "
M.7
m.4
M.7
m.5 n
m.6,
.
E12
El. piano
'em.9
octave (descending, D sharp-D), and a diminished octave (descending,

B flat-B). As instruments enter, the whole-tone idea is retained in the
form of a drone (electric piano), and the chromatic idea is continued in
the harp part, which contains two pairs of pitch classes that are a halfstep apart (F sharp, G, D, and E flat). The instrumental parts complement
each other chromatically, as they contain three pairs of pitch classes that
are a half-step apart from each other (A flat and G; F sharp and G; A flat
and A).
342
Adamenko
Numerology in Black Angels

In his electric string quartet, Crumb establishes Jungian "mythic order,"
based first on intuitive and then on more conscious incarnations of the
archetypal numbers 7 and 13, which corresponds to the neo-mythological
"conscious appropriation of an unconscious discovery": "When I was

writing Black Angels, it occurred to me that these numbers appeared all
the time in my sketches, and that was when I decided to make use of
them."54
Dolly Kessner claimed that number 7 (represented by seven halfsteps, or a perfect fifth) here symbolically represents "God-Life," while
13 (half-steps, or a minor ninth) stands for "Devil-Death."55 On the other
hand, Crumb himself thus decoded his association between the number
7 and the tritone: "In Black Angels I used a tritone, which corresponds to
number 7."56 During the interview at Rutgers University, the composer

drew a sketch illustrating what he later called the "basic sound," or the
"tritonal axis of the piece""57 (Example 9). The contradiction between a
double association of 7 as both a tritone (with its historically notorious
"bad" intervallic ethos) and a perfect fifth (with its culturally rooted
connotation of "good" intervallic ethos) is only apparent, for the number
7 is applicable to interval calculation in two ways-expressing either a

number of half steps, or the pitch names involved. From Example 9 it is
clear that Crumb has used the latter to assign the number 7 to F sharp
on the sketch, while a subtraction 13 - 7 still gives 6 as the expression of
the tritone's intervallic size. This multivalence of associations is likely

to be an intended effect on Crumb's part in the general equilibrium-like
atmosphere of this work. In the foreword to the score Crumb indicates
that "an important pitch element in the work-ascending D-sharp, A
and E--... symbolizes the fateful numbers 7-13." Based on the number of half-steps, the tritone D-sharp-A corresponds to 6, and the fifth
A-E-to 7, while the sum of these two numbers results in 13, which is
also a standard numerical expression for a minor ninth (in this case, D
sharp to E) as a minor second (1) plus an octave (12).
The essential difference between mathematical operations in the mod-
Example 9. Facsimile of Crumb's sketch illustrating the "tritonal axis" associated

with the numbers 7 and 13, in Black Angels.
??'' ... , . . --2-x "".?- .. J
].2-'

ern sense and the operations with numbers in myths lies in the fact that
in myths each number, or a combination of numbers, carries a unique

and tangible "ethos," meaning, or a mode; as a result of this, formulas
such as "13 times 7" and "7 times 13" would never be equal, while in the
abstract science of mathematics these only appear opposite, but in fact
are equal in the resulting value. Crumb's program in the preface to Black
Angels contains a diagram clearly demonstrating this type of operation:
"13 times 7 and 7 times 13" of the first movement is the direct opposition
of "7 times 13 and 13 times 7" of the last. How is this opposition realized
in the inner structure of both movements?
The first movement contains bracketed groups of notes with numbers

under them that indicate the number of repeats of that group (Example
10). The entire movement is made of quintuplets, each of which equals
one second, as indicated in the author's remark in the score, or an eighth
note (MM = 60). Thus each labeled number indicates duration in seconds,
as well as the number of repeats. The total number of eighth notes in

the movement equals 91--precisely the mathematical sum arrived at by
multiplying the two fatal numbers, 7 and 13. Since an eighth-note beat
unit equals one second, the total sounding time ideally should also be 91
seconds. However, performances vary in this respect; here lies the natural borderline between the numerologically ideal model and the actual
reality of a performance. Number 7 predominates among all bracketed
indications of the first movement-namely, this number is met here 6
times. (This seems to be not accidental, for both 6 and 7 are significant
in the pitch formula of the piece.)
Let us compare this to the last movement (Example 11). Including
the "bridge" from the previous movement-a sustained high d in the
cello part, marked 13 seconds-and excluding the Coda that begins on
page 9 of the score (Sarabanda de la muerte oscura), this movement (13.
Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects) contains an approximately
similar number of units, or seconds, if we apply the same rule of counting bracketed groups as in the first movement. New here, however, are
eight groups, each labeled 13 seconds. Their overlap makes calculation
of the total time less precise. Nevertheless, there are clearly three groups
of 13 seconds each in the first segment (marked "disembodied, incorporeal"). Two of these overlap only slightly, with the overall duration
of the segment resulting in a little less than 39. The similar brackets of
the second segment (marked "vibrant, intense!") carry the sacramental
numbers 7-3-4-7 (totaling in 21 seconds), which overlap by one group
(= 1 second) with the final segment. The latter consists of three slightly
overlapping 13-second groups. Thus, adding <39, 20, and <39, we obtain
a number that is less than 98, which approximates to the number 91 of
the first movement. This gives a justification to Crumb's labeling both
movements 1 and 13 in a similar yet oppositional fashion ("13 times 7
Example 10. George Crumb, Black Angels, opening fragment. ? 1972 C. E Peters Corporation. All rights r
Vibrant. intense! JG60
S5emlr s ul vpont e lsse --
, (Sempre ; m.) _ _ _ _
irpr e soulj a
':
5F
uh.)
3
ISI
ocd
L5j
31-) t~P' wi pr~l49 ois
?r
if ~ I
MMMMprLS
Hsu Y-l w-tub'?
4
73
'

Example 11. George Crumb, Black Angels, movement 13. ? 1972 C. F. Peters Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
. ' "...... ...... ..
1-f - 11"J , r o941 .. . . .
133
'-: - ;~~ i-r~rJ t-_ ---'"?- '. ,

7 3 447___
. -w~~ __,_-_._
__
-_ ___-._._
.__. - . . . ..
pm
_W
IW'13
?113
..-'-00---.-- - -- ...
'I-Q
1+.--I ...._ 41
-f-Ip~ p~rgr~t;
!
LFF
tp+"--
-~
___p~
___.
J .. . .. . . . .-
Ity
no
r-?VQr
i,.i*
q?;16
ch,,- ,i rt Sa hi .
.......----
13
and 7 times 13" versus "7 times 13 and 13 times 7"), based on the polarities of their inner structures. While there were no 13-second groups in
the first movement, in movement 13, on the contrary, Crumb uses many
instances of such groupings. Likewise, what served as an opening of the

entire piece (a structure 7-3-4-7) appears as the central internal segment
of movement 13. Conversely, the tritone-based glissandos that initially
followed the four opening groups of the first movement, now serve as
the opening of the last movement. The structure 7-3-4-7 is, of course,
numerically invertible by itself as 7-7-7: its core contains numbers 3
and 4, surrounded on both sides by their sum (7). Numbers 3, 4, and 7
346
Adamenko
are considered the most sacred in many world mythologies, where they
possess universal meanings of dynamics (odd number 3), stability, four
points of a compass (even number 4), and the union of the opposites in
number 7.
The central movement (7), which Crumb designates "the numerological basis of the entire work,"58 corresponds to the "axis of symmetry"
role of number 7 in the simple row of 13 numbers:
12345 6 (7) 89 1112 13
The puzzling subtitle for this movement combines the numbers 7 and 13
in a repetitive manner: "7 times 7 and 13 times 13." The movement opens
with a tritone in each of the parts repeated 7 times. In the context hinted
at by the subtitle, the tritone is apparently represented by the number

7. The formula "13 times 13" applies to the number of utterances of the
word "thirteen" pronounced in different languages-namely, it appears
3 times uttered by 3 performers (total 9 utterances) on page 5 of the
score, and one time at the end of the movement by all four participants
(9 + 4 = 13). This centerpiece is framed by two movements that also
contain uniform numbers instead of juxtaposing them: "13 over 13" in
the Sarabanda and "13 under 13" in the Pavana. Formulations that place
numbers "over" or "under" each other are also mythologically rooted;
as Alexey Losev noted, the mythological perception of number does not
see in it merely a notion, but a physical object, or "thing."59 Crumb's
"physical" manipulations with numbers are evident in texture, tessitura,
and rhythm groupings. For example, in movement 2 (marked "7 in 13"),
a passage consistently reappearing in the first violin part consists of 13
notes. Within these, a group of seven is clearly marked as a "centerpiece"
(Example 12).
In movement 3 (marked "13 over 7"), 13 high-pitched notes taken as
harmonics appear after and (in terms of pitch) over a 7-second drone.
In movement 5, the formula "13 times 7" refers to the number of occur-
rences of 7 as part of a time signature. Each such appearance indicates

a shift in time signature: 7/32 to 7/16 to 7/64, and so on, including a
polymetric combination of 7/8 and 7/16.
By indicating "7 and 13" in movement 4, Crumb suggests the perception of a perfect fifth a-e as 7, and the minor ninth d sharp-e as 13, since
these two intervals recur many times throughout this movement both
harmonically and melodically, including the opening sonority. Thus the
Example 12. George Crumb, Black Angels, a rhythmic group in the first violin
part of movement 2.
.13

opposition of these two numbers is expressed here through intervallic
ethos.
Crumb's numerology remains in the vein of an earlier modernist

rendezvous with numbers-especially that of Schoenberg, who feared
the number 13 most."6 By returning the original wealth of meaning to
numbers, Crumb has thus contributed to the process of remythification
described by the Tartu-Moscow school.
Syncretism
Critics have long noted Crumb's desire to create a synthesis of diverse
media and stylistic components, comparing it with Wagner's Gesamkunstwerk;61 however, his tendency toward the integration of diverse
elements has never been perceived as a tool for mythification-that is,
as an attempt to return to the mythic "whole" and undivided state. His
syncretism of artistic media is apparent in, among other things, his tribute
to the newly established conventions of "instrumental theater"62 of the

last several decades of the twentieth century: performers marching synchronously with the music they perform, pronouncing nonsense syllables
(both of these features appear in Crumb's "Processionals for Orchestra"

Echoes of Time and the River of 1967), and other elements. However, this
composer's place is unique. The imagery of Crumb's work is a result

of his fantasy-like, quasi-surrealistic, highly associative perception that
relies on the visual domain and poetic impulses. As we saw, in the Dance
of the Sacred Life-Cycle from Ancient Voices, the use of circular graphics
parallels the text (selectively fashioned by the composer)-visual in parallel with verbal. In addition, music, which is structured accordingly, also
evokes the same mythologem. The use of many different domains, or

media types, here seems to serve the goal of creating an all-embracing
totality and is, indeed, a channel of mythification. In myths, a symbolic
representation of all major elements of the cosmic "whole" required a reference to the natural elements, such as fire, water, and earth. In Crumb's
world these natural "elements" come into view as the various domains
of modern artistic expression. In the Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle, these
appear as the sprechstimme dialogue of soprano and boy soprano, theatri-
cal reading, purely instrumental sound, mixed vocal and instrumental

sound, spatial effects, choreography (optional dance or mime; compare
to the "choreography" of four conductors in the Star-Child), and the
visual (for the viewers of the "circle music" in the calligraphy of the
scores). The graphic notation may be viewed as Crumb's version of the
tone-painting tradition-the visual in association with formal design
that together correspond to the meaning of the verbal text. This is most
evident, perhaps, in Eleven Echoes ofAutumn, where the "broken arches"
are depicted visually. Crumb's fascination with syncretism explains this
348
Adamenko
affinity for Lorca's poetry, which is "musical" by itself. The blending

of different artistic domains in Lorca's poetics is remarkable, and the
aspects of his personality as a musician and an artist must have played
a role in this.63
An important aspect of Crumb's syncretism is the use of phoneme mu-
sic (a term introduced by Stravinsky)64-a phenomenon that extends

the properties of both words and music through nonsense syllables, or
babbling. By using so-called extended vocal techniques, Crumb paid his
tribute to the "New Vocalism" trend, seen in works such as Boulez's Pli
selon pli (1957-62); Berio's Circles (1960), Visage (1961), and Sinfonia (1968);
Pousseur's Phonemes pour Cathy (1966); and more. The trend developed
from the work of the Second Viennese School composers, Scriabin, and
early twentieth-century avant-garde composers.65 Crumb's voice in this
chorus is distinguishable thanks to its semantic transparency and openly
mythic undertones. His case serves as a model for interpretation in the
examination of the mythic babbling of the New Vocalism.66 Crumb especially seems to restate the mythic function of the recollection of origins
in utilizing emotive untranslatable syllables. On the opening page of his

Ancient Voices of Children, hums and repeated figures, such as "a-i-u,"
"kaumm," and "ue-ai," express a primordial searching for words-the
idea echoed in the first line of text: "A little boy was looking for his voice."
As Spitz has remarked, the child from Ancient Voices "is too young to form
words."67 The primitive babbling may be interpreted as standing for the
childhood of mankind, or the early prereflective stage of culture. Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) compared the mythological epoch to childhood
in the history of humankind. From this perspective, it also makes sense
to emphasize, as Spitz does as a psychoanalyst, that in Ancient Voices of
Children "ancient" is equated with "the earliest in life."68 Thus Crumb's
meaningless syllables serve the purpose of recollecting the origins. While
for an archaic myth-maker, mythic time served this function, for Crumb,
music itself is the mythic place of origin: "I feel intuitively that music
must have been the primitive cell from which language, science, and
religion originated."69
Archaism
Leo Normet argued that "archaism and timelessness are inevitable presuppositions for the mythical in music."70 Although the simple act of
incorporating a primitive idiom into a musical work can hardly make
the work "mythic," the interpretation of "the mythic" as "ancient," or
"primary" is justified by the notion of myth as timeless (i.e., first estab-
lished in the mythic time) "precedent" or "model." In this particular

sense Normet's formula for the mythic in music may be useful.
The understanding of "mythic" as "archaic" is crucial to a study of

Crumb's work; for the composer, these terms are synonymous (as evident
from the epigraph to this article). Moreover, critics and colleagues have
commonly characterized Crumb's world as "primeval and atavistic,"71
and his work as "modern music that drips with an ineffable antiquity."72
A manifestation of this is Crumb's use of the timeless "universals of
music." In particular, his palindromes and arch-forms have long been

noted and justly attributed to Bart6k's direct influence on Crumb, many
times confirmed by the latter.73 In mythic terms, Bart6k's model is but a
modern reactualization of a proto-structure, a sample of how the timeless idea of symmetry is realized in our own time.
Some scholars claim that the search for the "universals of music" is
possible only on the level of animal sounds-the sounds of nature.74

From this point of view, Crumb's insect drones might be considered his
attempt to search for the "universals." "Insect drone" pertains to natural
perception; however, in Crumb it is moderated by cultural precedents,
namely, Lorca's poetry and Bart6k's "night music." Regarding the "insect
sounds" in Black Angels, Crumb said: "it was by extension of Bart6k's
insect music, maybe."75 The image of insect drones as a symbol of primal
energy is found in Lorca's texts. Rupert Allen considered Lorca's early

poem Cicada! as offering the "mythic perspective of the Macrocosm."76
Incidentally, Allen's description of the cicada sounds in connection with
Lorca's poem as "electric ... charging the whole atmosphere ... on a hot
summer afternoon ... with a frantic intensity" matches Crumb's subtitles
in the scores of Black Angels ("electric insects"), Dream Sequence ("as an

afternoon in late summer"), and Makrokosmos III ("Music for a Summer
Evening").
In the interview at Rutgers, Crumb pointed to the link between the
archaic and the mythic in this exchange. I asked him, "You have a piece
entitled Myth.77 Did you think of any particular myth, or does it refer to
myth in general?"
His response: "I was thinking of ancient, prehistoric music, the primeval sounds like the droning sounds."78
Here, Crumb seems to perceive the drone as one of the archaic layers
that still survive in musical culture; this parallels the way in which mythic
thought is still a part of contemporary culture. In other words, it is mu-
sic-in certain natural forms, such as drones-that still carries the quality
of being "ancient" or "primeval," and thus assumes mythic qualities. The
issue of the "origins of music" inevitably rises here.79 Although it can
hardly ever be proven, droning is presumably one of the earliest forms
of music and thus can assist Crumb in his quest for mythification, for
the musical embodiments of "primitive" or "ancient" qualities. Through
archaism, as well as through syncretism and numerology, music, along
with the other arts, plays a role in the process of mythification, providing
artistic proof for expressions of primal "truth."
350
Adamenko
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the composer for the interview quoted in the epigraph, the complete text
of which is available in the appendix to my Ph.D. dissertation, "Neo-Mythologism in

Twentieth-Century Music," Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 2000.
NOTES
1. Donald Henahan identified a "darkly magical mood" in "Ancient Voices of Children,"

New York Times, Nov. 2, 1970; Richard Steinitz pointed to the "extraordinarily haunting
and intoxicating magic of [ ... ] sound" he heard in Crumb's music-The Musical Times
119 (1978): 844.
2. Robert Moevs, review of "Music for a Summer Evening" (Makrokosmos III), Musical
Quarterly 62 (1976): 302; . Robert Evett, review of Makrokosmos I, Washington Star-News,
1973.
3. Questioned about his circular notation, Crumb replied, "Every composer should be
permitted an occasional flight of whimsy!"; from "Interview: George Crumb / Robert
Shuffett," in George Crumb: Profile of a Composer, ed. Don Gillespie (New York: C. F. Peters,
1986), 37.
4. Crumb's characterization of the use of phonetic language in several of his works.

See Mark Alburger, "Day of the Vox Crumbae: An Ancient, Angelic Interview with the
Phantom Gondolier," Twentieth Century Music 4 (1997): 14.
5. See, for example, Richard Bass's meticulous "Sets, Scales, and Symmetries: The PitchStructural Basis of George Crumb's Makrokosmos I and II," Music Theory Spectrum 13 (1991):
1-20; and Thomas R. de Dobay, "The Evolution of Harmonic Style in the Lorca Works of
Crumb," Journal of Music Theory 27 (1984): 89-111.
6. The term "Neo-mythologism" was coined in Meletinsky's Poetika Mifa (Moscow:

Nauka, 1976). The English translation replaced it with the term "re-mythification." Eleazar
M. Meletinsky, The Poetics ofMyth, trans. Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky (New York:
Garland, 1998).
7. On the role of repetitiveness in archaic mythic texts, see, in particular, The Naked Man,
Introduction to a Science of Mythology 4 (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 673.
8. Cited in Pandora Hopkins's translation from her critique of Levi-Strauss's theory, "The
Homology of Music and Myth: Views of Levi-Strauss on Musical Structure," Ethnomusicology 21 (1977): 252.
9. Vladimir N. Toporov, "K proiskhozhdeniyu nekotorykh poeticheskikh simvolov:

Paleoliticheskaya epokha," in Rannieformy isskustva [Early Art Forms] (Moscow: Iskusstvo,
1972), 79.
10. Transformations of a mythical hero is one example of the variability characteristic
of myth: see Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968). Levi-Strauss, from a structuralist perspective, describes the variability
of mythic thought in The Naked Man, 675.
11. Examples of symmetrical structures in myths are cited in "Rapports de symetrie

entre rites et mythes de peuples voisins," in The Translation of Culture: Essays to E. E. Evans-
Pritchard, ed. T. O.Beidelman (London: Tavistock, 1971), 161-78.

12. Zara Minz, "O nekotorykh 'neomifologicheskikh' tekstakh v tvorchestve russkikh
simvolistov" [About some "neo-mythological" texts in the works of Russian symbolists]
in Tvorchestvo Bloka i russkaya kultura XX veka: Uchenye zapiski Tartusskogo Universiteta,
Blokovskii sbornik 3 (Tartu: Tartu University Press, 1979), 95.
13. Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974),
391.

14. Alexey I. Kobzev, "Metodologia kitaiskoi klassicheskoi filosofii: numerologia i protologika [The Methodology of Chinese classical philosophy: numerology and protologic],
Ph.D. diss., Moscow University, 1988, 21.
15. Vladimir Toporiov, "Chisla," [Numbers], in Mify narodov mira [The myths of the
world's peoples], vol. 2, ed. Sergei Tokarev (Moscow: Bol'shaya Rossiysskaya Enziklopediya, 1997), 631.
16. Carl G. Jung, "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle," in The Structure
and Dynamics of the Psyche, 2d ed., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Collected Works of C. G. Jung 8,
Bollingen Series (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), 457.
17. Poetika mifa, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Vostochnaja literatura, 2000), 297, my translation.
18. Plato in Phaedo refers to Socrates' testimony that myths are to be sung as healing
charms. David A. White notes this in Myth and Metaphysics in Plato's "Phaedo" (Selinsgrove,
Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1989), 18.

19. George Crumb, personal interview; for complete text, see the appendix to my Ph.D.
dissertation, "Neo-Mythologism in Twentieth-Century Music," Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, N.J., 2000, 307 (hereafter cited as Interview at RU). In a telephone conversation
(Jan. 14, 2001) Crumb also specified that one of his books on Jung addressed mythology.
Crumb recalled reading this book in his early career.
20. Rupert Allen draws upon Jung and his theory of archetypes when discussing Lorca's
poetry in The Symbolic World of Federico Garcia Lorca (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1972), 54.
21. From the commentary to the recording: Elektra Nonesuch 979149-2, 1975.
22. Carl Jung, "Approaching the Unconscious," in Man and His Symbols (New York:
Ferguson, 1964), 55.
23. Interview at RU, 305-6.
24. Ibid., 307.
25. Ibid., 306-7.
26. Ibid. In a phone conversation on March 14, 2003, Crumb confirmed that he has never
seen an Indian Ghost Dance that has served as a prototype for this movement, and added,
"I do that a lot-using something that I have never seen myself, but read about it."
27. Mark Alburger, "Day of the Vox Crumbae: An Ancient, Angelic Interview with the
Phantom Gondolier," Twentieth-Century Music 4 (1997): 16.
28. Carl Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice (New York: Pantheon Books,
1968), 138.
29. Carl Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype," in Carl Gustav Jung and Carl
Ker6nyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology (1949; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1971), 83.
30. Ibid., 82-83.

31. Interview with Robert Shuffett, in Profile of a Composer, ed. Gillespie, 35.
32. Carl Jung, Mandala Symbolism, Collected Works of C. G. Jung 9, pt. I (Princeton. N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1972), 4-5.
33. Phone conversation, Feb. 16, 1999.
34. See Bartolome de Pareja, Musica Practica, ed. Clemente Terni (Madrid: Joyas Bibliograficas, 1982), 294.
35. Compendium musicae latino-germanucum des Adam Gumpelshaimer, cited in

Robert Haas, "Die Musik des Barocks," in Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, ed. Ernst Bucken
(Potsdam: Academische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1931), 121.

36. Interview at RU, 300; phone conversation, Feb. 16, 1999.
37. Interview at RU, 300.
38. Ibid., 307.
39. Ibid., 302.
40. On the meanings of these figures see Jack Tresidder, Symbols and Their Meanings
(London: Friedman and Fairfax, 2000).
352
Adamenko

42. See Spitz, "Ancient Voices of Children: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation," Current Mu-
sicology 60 (1985): 7-21.

43. Jung, Mandala Symbolism, 72.
44. The mythic features of Lorca's poetry have long been noticed in literary criticism. In
particular, Edward F. Stanton wrote, "Lorca's poetry carries us back to a mythic universe";
The Tragic Myth: Lorca and "Cante Jondo" (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1978),
X.
45. Liner notes to Ancient Voices of Children, no. 979149-2, Electra Nonesuch, 1975.
46. The echo motif has always been very popular in music; one of the more recent
examples can be found in Babbitt's Philomel (1964). In Ancient Voices of Children, the echo
effect is also prominent. Crumb wrote, "Perhaps the most characteristic vocal effect in
Ancient Voices is produced by the mezzo-soprano singing a kind of fantastic vocalise ...
into an amplified piano, thereby producing a shimmering aura of echoes." Notes to a CD
recording of Ancient Voices of Children, no. 979149-2, Electra Nonesuch, 1975.
47. "Polidor," in Mifologicheskii slovar [The dictionary of mythology], ed. Eleazar Meletinsky (Moscow: Sovetskaya Enziklopedia, 1991), 445.
48. This archetype also relates to the group of myths about the heavenly world where
the angels or the holy youths live. In general, the mythologem of a child derives from the
myths about the holy child as forefather of mankind. On the mythic aspects of "ChildSymbol" in Lorca see chapter 3 of Rupert C. Allen, The Symbolic World of Federico Garcia
Lorca (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972), 159-73.
49. See Robert Lima, "Immolations: Rites of Sacrifice on the Stages of Federico Garcia
Lorca," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 15 (2001): 33-48; see also his "Toward the
Dionysiac: Pagan Elements and Rites in Yerma," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 4
(1990): 63-82.
50. In the myths of Tukano and Aravaks, the main male deity, Yurupari, was burned,
and from his ashes grew a palm tree. From the bark of that tree, flutes and trumpets were
made, which preserved Yurupari's voice. Mifologicheskii slovar [The dictionary of mythology], 647.
51. Measure number indications are not based on bar lines; I chose to indicate as measures
those segments of the score that are separated by the breaks in the staff. Letter indications
of other segments (A123, B123, and C123) are present in Crumb's score. Two segments of
notation (harp and electric piano, "measure" six and section E 1, 2) are excluded from the
chart, because rapid glissandi along with percussion do not allow for actual pitch perception.
52. Crumb analyst Steven Chatman summarized an established view on Crumb's foremost concern for sonority writing that "Crumb seems less concerned with any elaborate
development of pitch and harmony," and that, in some works, "vertical or harmonic analysis tends to be unprofitable"; "The Element of Sound in 'Night of the Four Moons,'" in
George Crumb, ed. Gillespie, 63.
53. The composer's own expression from the Notes to Makrokosmos I.
55. Dolly Kessner, "Structural Coherence in Late Twentieth-Century Music," Ph.D. diss.,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1992, 114.
57. Phone conversation, June 5, 2001.
58. See Crumb's footnote to the diagram in the score.
59. Alexey Losev (1893-1988), a distinguished Russian mythographer and a historian of

antiquity. See his Antichnyi kosmos i sovremennaya nauka [The ancient cosmos and modern
science] (Moscow: by the author, 1927), 27.
60. Colin Sterne demonstrated how Schoenberg seriously believed in "lucky" and "unlucky" numbers and their impact on his personal fate and his works. For example, Schoen-

berg considered 3 extremely good, and 13 extremely bad. Arnold Schoenberg, the Composer
as Numerologist (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1993), 1-4.

61. Suzanne Mac Lean, "George Crumb, American Composer and Visionary," in Profile
of a Composer, ed. Gillespie, 25.
62. The term instrumental theater appears as early as in 1966 in an essay by Mauricio
Kagel, one of the phenomenon's principal proponents, and it has become widespread
in European literature on the music of the second half of the twentieth century. See Neue
Raum, Neue Musik: Gedanken zum Instrumentalen Theater, in Im Zenit der Moderne: Geschichte
und Dokumentation in vier Banded. Die Internationalen Ferienkurse fir Neue Musik Darmstadt,
1946-66 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 1997), 253.

63. According to Lorca's biographers, he was trained as a classical pianist from a young
age; he is also known for his visual artwork. Edward F. Stanton writes that "with literature,
music constituted the most important activity of his life. The two arts were closely related
to each other throughout his career"; The Tragic Myth, ix.
64. Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Expositions and Developments (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1981), 121.
65. Scriabin used a vocalization of syllables for mixed choir, "E-a-kho-a," in the culmination of Prometheus. Glenn Watkins, who justly regards many diverse works that employ
"nonsense" syllables as one trend (the term New Vocalism is attributed to Berio), offers a
guide to research in this field: Soundings. Music in the Twentieth Century (New York: Schirmer,
1988), 605-22.
66. The idea of words and music being interrelated through myth has been discussed
both theoretically and in application to a particular style. See, for example, Jean-Paul
Madou, "Langue, mythe, musique: Rousseau, Nietzsche, Mallarme, Levi-Strauss," in Litterature et musique, ed. Raphael Celis (Bruxelles: Facultes Universitaires Saint-Lois, 1982),
75-109. Norbet Dressen acknowledged the special role of myth in Luciano Berio's approach
to text in Sprache und Musik bei Luciano Berio: Untersuchungen zu seinen Vokalkompositionen
(Regennsburg: Gustav Bosse, 1982), 21-22.

67. Spitz, "Ancient Voices of Children," 15.
68. Ibid.
69. Oliver Daniel, "George Crumb," brochure (New York: Broadcast Music, 1975), final
page.
70. Leo Normet, "The Mythical in Non-Programmatic Music," in Musical Signification:

Essays in the Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music, ed. Eero Tarasti (New York: Mouton de
Gruyter, 1995), 560.
71. Richard Wernick, "George Crumb: Friend and Musical Colleague," in Profile of a
Composer, ed. Gillespie, 69.
72. Jamake Highwater, in Soho Weekly News, April 7, 1977, cited in Profile of a Composer,
ed. Gillespie, 33.

73. In a review of Judith Frigyesi, Bdla Bart6k and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest in JAMS
53 (2000): 190, David E. Schneider suggested that the seamless circularity of form found in
Bart6k's opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911) might have served as an origin for the arch forms
of the Fourth String Quartet (1928) and the Second Piano Concerto (1931).
74. See "The Necessity of and Problems with a Universal Musicology," in "Universals
in Music," a chapter in The Origins of Music, ed. Nils L. Wallin et al. (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 2001): 473-80.
75. Alburger, "Day of the Vox Crumbae," 16. Bart6k initiated his special "night music"
genre in Musiques Nocturnes from the Out of Doors suite (1926), which involves chromatic
motives and cluster-chords. These are believed to represent, according to a memoir by

Bart6k's son, "the concert of frogs heard in peaceful nights": B6la Bart6k Jr., "Remembering my Father, B6la Bart6k," The New Hungarian Quarterly 22 (1966): 14. The night music
theme continued in later Bart6k works through to the third movement of the Concerto for
354
Adamenko
Orchestra; a specific example of "insect music" is "From the Diary of a Fly" no. 142 from
vol. 6 of Mikrokosmos (1926-39).
76. Rupert C. Allen, The Symbolic World of Federico Garcia Lorca (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 1972).

77. Piece No. 4 from Crumb's "Music for a Summer Evening" (Makrokosmos III) for two
amplified pianos and percussion (Peters, 1974).

79. See The Origins of Music, ed. Wallin et al.

Crumb Mythification

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Crumb Mythification

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George Crumb's Channels of Mythification

Author(s): Victoria Adamenko

George Crumb's Channels

Music tends to be mythological, at least some of it.

George Crumb's fascination with mythology has not previously been

lexis of the critical essays on Crumb has included references to magic,1

sound matter itself-a bricolage of unusual timbres, spell-like recitations,

previously she has been published in Journal of Musicological Research, Music

American Music Fall 2005

@ 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

George Crumb's Channels of Mythification 325

est" or "appeal to the senses."2 These disapprovals echoed the ideals

guistics, and criticism-in particular, of Eleazar Meletinsky (b. 1918),

that are outlined in these methodological paradigms that are relevant

Levi-Strauss argued that repetitiveness and symmetry are "elementary

reveal themselves in myth-making.7 Mythic time is not only circular,

consequent events was established. In connection to the reactualization

patterns of structuring are not "pre-ordained and inflexible structures,

without being obliged to remain identical."8 He used these "molds" as

variants of the same idea.10

The structures of symmetrical concentric circles and inversions are

di).11 A mythologem, according to the Tartu-Moscow school, is a symbol

with associations and particularly evocative of "all"-hence its use in

The scholars of the Tartu-Moscow school observed that, although a

tion of modern culture, nevertheless, many fragments of that thought

in creation myths. In many cosmologies, each number had a unique

a tendency to return semantic significance back to numbers is being

realized in the arts and poetry-the realm that serves as a sanctu-

George Crumb's Channels of Mythification 327

Jungian psychoanalysis, with its universalizing and metaphorical

ated or oppressed modem individual to the pre-reflexive psychology

The turn to prereflective psychology is aimed at achieving wholeness

when many currently disparate elements were fused together, including

Neo-mythologism via Jung

I feel that the essential meaning of this poetry is concerned with

The composer's fascination with "the ur-concepts" (the archetypal topics

expressed, may be rooted in the rediscovery of the "archaic remnants"

specifically studied his patients' night dreams and compared them to

show their connection to mandala as an archetypal idea. The Sanskrit

as someone familiar with different mythological traditions, from Greek

I have Edith Hamilton's book on Greek mythology. I have read that

Crumb's approach to myth also involves what Meletinsky ascribed to

George Crumb's Channels of Mythification 329

the idea of circular notation, may all be interpreted in Jungian terms as

mations ... : it can be expressed by roundness, the circle or sphere. .... It

of the child archetype as "unifying the opposites; a mediator, bringer

stylistic consistency would follow naturally [emphasis mine]."31 That

comparable to the role outlined by Jung of the mandala as an "archetype

that Ross Lee Finney (1906-97), Crumb's professor of composition at the

throughout Spherical Madrigals by other, nongraphic, means: the use of

a fancy cover decoration of the score than an independent piece. It is in

George Crumb's Channels of Mythification 331

principle when drawing my scores."37

as cultural symbols.39 Notably, every fourth movement (the 4th, 8th,

Performing from such a score means transforming it from "a thing in

The Mythologem of the Circle in Ancient Voices of Children

multivalent in its meaning and open for interpretation, as the following

reincarnation, changes of seasons, and other symbolic meanings that

He answered, "It is connected to all of those things."41

Example 2. George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children, a fragment from movement

3. @ 1971 C. F. Peters Corporation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

A3 L44 Wo o-W t 496 ikC1 ~ f 60L toC pwdw

' ..".. ::.', ". DANCE OF THE "...... " ..........

array of meaning offered by the mythologem of a circle. It may very