Ruth Crawford Seeger (born Ruth Porter Crawford; July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953) was an American composer and folk music specialist. Her music was a prominent exponent of the emerging

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

aesthetic and she became a central member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns". Though she composed primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, Seeger turned towards studies on folk music from the late 1930s until her death. Her music influenced later composers, particularly

Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernism (music), modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism a ...

Childhood

Ruth Crawford was born in

East Liverpool, Ohio East Liverpool is a city in southeastern Columbiana County, Ohio, United States. The population was 9,958 at the 2020 census. It lies along the Ohio River within the Upper Ohio Valley and borders Pennsylvania to the east and West Virginia to t ...

, the second child of Clark Crawford, a Methodist minister, and Clara Crawford (''née'' Graves). The family moved several times during Crawford's childhood, living in

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city ...

, St. Louis, Missouri, and Muncie, Indiana. In 1912, the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Clark Crawford died of tuberculosis two years later. After her husband's death, Clara Crawford opened a boarding house and struggled to maintain her family's middle-class lifestyle. Ruth began writing poetry at an early age and as a teenager had aspirations to become an "authoress or poetess". She also studied the piano beginning at age six. In 1913, she began piano lessons with Bertha Foster, who had founded the School of Musical Art in Jacksonville in 1908. In 1917, Ruth began to study with Madame Valborg Collett, who was a student of Agathe Backer Grøndahl and the most prestigious teacher at Foster's School of Musical Art. After her graduation from high school in 1918, Crawford began to pursue a career as a concert pianist, continuing her studies with Collett and performing at various musical events in Jacksonville. She also became a piano teacher at Foster's school and wrote her first compositions for her young pupils in 1918 and 1919.

Career

Chicago

Crawford moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1921 where she enrolled at the

American Conservatory of Music The American Conservatory of Music (ACM) was a major American school of music founded in Chicago in 1886 by John James Hattstaedt (1851–1931). The conservatory was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit corporation. It developed the Conservato ...

, initially planning to stay for a single year, long enough to earn a teaching certificate. In Chicago, she attended symphony and opera performances for the first time as well as recitals by eminent pianists including

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

and

Arthur Rubinstein Arthur Rubinstein ( pl, Artur Rubinstein; 28 January 188720 December 1982) was a Polish-American pianist.

. At the Conservatory, she studied piano with Heniot Levy and Louise Robyn. Crawford's focus at the Conservatory quickly shifted from piano performance to composition. During her second year there, she began composition and theory studies with Adolf Weidig and wrote several early works, including a Nocturne for Violin and Piano (1923) and a set of theme and variations for piano (1923). Clara Crawford moved to Chicago to live with her daughter in 1923. The next year, Ruth received her bachelor's degree in music from the Conservatory and subsequently enrolled in the school's master's degree program. While Crawford continued to study theory and composition with Weidig at the American Conservatory of Music through 1929, in 1924 she also began private piano lessons with Djane Lavoie-Herz. Herz, one of the most prestigious piano teachers in Chicago at the time, had a profound impact on Crawford's intellectual and musical life. Herz sparked Crawford's interest in

theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

and the music of

Alexander Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed ...

, and introduced her pupil to an influential community of artists and thinkers. Through Herz, Crawford met Dane Rudhyar and

Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 20 ...

, composers who would both have a significant impact on Crawford's music and career. During this time, Crawford also met the leading Chicago poet

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...

, whose writings she eventually set to music.

New York

Crawford spent the summer of 1929 at the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDow ...

on a scholarship, where she began a friendship with fellow composer Marion Bauer and began work on her Five Songs set to poems by Sandburg. In the fall of that year, Crawford moved into the New York home of music patron Blanche Walton and began studying composition with Charles Seeger. In 1930, she became the first female composer to receive the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and went to Berlin and Paris. She inquired about a renewal of her fellowship several times over the course of the next year, but was ultimately refused a renewal. During that time, she interviewed Emil Hertzka to discuss publishing her music, but he said "it would be particularly hard for a woman to get anything published." Crawford subsequently travelled to Vienna and Budapest to meet composers

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( , ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sm ...

and

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hun ...

to discuss her music and gain support for publication. Though surrounded by exponents of German modernism, she chose to study and compose alone. Seeger's ideas, communicated by letter, were crucial to the development of her style and selections. She and Charles Seeger married in 1932 after her subsequent trip to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. At the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Amsterdam (1933), her ''Three Songs'' for voice, oboe, percussion and strings represented the United States.

Washington D.C.

Crawford Seeger and her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1936 after Charles' appointment to the music division of the

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Se ...

. There Crawford Seeger worked closely with John and

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, s ...

at the Archive of American Folk Song at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

to preserve and teach American folk music. Her arrangements and interpretations of American traditional folk songs are among the most respected. These include transcriptions for ''American Folk Songs for Children'', ''Animal Folk Songs for Children'' (1950), ''American Folk Songs for Christmas'' (1953), ''Our Singing Country'', and ''Folk Song USA'' by John and Alan Lomax. However, she is best known for ''Our Singing Country'' (1941). She also composed ''"Rissolty, Rossolty" – An American Fantasy for Orchestra'' based on folk tunes, for the CBS radio series '' The American School of the Air''. She returned to her modernist roots in early 1952 with Suite for Wind Quintet, but in 1953 she died from intestinal cancer, in

Chevy Chase, Maryland Chevy Chase () is the name of both a town and an unincorporated census-designated place ( Chevy Chase (CDP), Maryland) that straddle the northwest border of Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Several settlements in t ...

. She was buried at the Springfield Cemetery in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Family

In 1932, she married Charles Seeger. Their children, including Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Barbara, Penny, and older stepson

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notabl ...

, knew their mother as "Dio". Several of the children as musical artists themselves became central to the American folk revival, but they had little knowledge of their mother's former life as a beacon of American ultramodernism.

Composition

The compositions that Crawford Seeger wrote in Chicago from 1924 to 1929 reflect the influence of

, Dane Rudhyar, and her piano teacher Djane Lavoie-Herz. Judith Tick calls these years Crawford Seeger's "first distinctive style period" and writes that the composer's music during this time "might be termed 'post-tonal pluralism' ". Her compositions from this first style period, including Five Preludes for Piano, Sonata for Violin and Piano, Suite No. 2 for Strings and Piano, and ''Five Songs on Sandburg Poems'' (1929), are marked by strident dissonance, irregular rhythms, and evocations of spirituality. Crawford Seeger's reputation as a composer rests chiefly on her New York compositions written between 1930 and 1933, which exploit dissonant counterpoint and American serial techniques. During these years Crawford began to incorporate

polytonality Polytonality (also polyharmony) is the musical use of more than one key (music), key simultaneity (music), simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one diat ...

and tone clusters into her compositions. She was one of the first composers to extend serial processes to musical elements other than pitch and to develop formal plans based on serial operations. Her technique may have been influenced by the music of

Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, although they met only briefly during her studies in Germany. Many of her works from this period employ dissonant counterpoint, a theoretical compositional system developed by Charles Seeger and used by Henry Cowell, Johanna Beyer, and others. Seeger outlined his methodology for dissonant counterpoint in his treatise, ''Tradition and Experiment in (the New) Music'', which he wrote with the input and assistance of Crawford during the summer of 1930. Crawford Seeger's contribution to the book was significant enough that the possibility of co-authorship was briefly raised. ''String Quartet 1931'', particularly the third movement, is Crawford Seeger's most famous and influential work. The composer described the "underlying plan" of the third movement as "a heterophony of dynamics—a sort of counterpoint of crescendi and diminuendi. ... The melodic line grows out of this continuous increase and decrease; it is given, one tone at a time, to different instruments, and each new melodic tone is brought in at the high point in a crescendo". The dynamic slides create the lengthy melody that spans the entire movement and shape the narrative arc.

Works

Early

*''Little Waltz'', for piano, 1922 *Piano Sonata, 1923 *''Theme and Variations'', for piano, 1923 *''Little Lullaby'', for piano, 1923 *''Jumping the Rope (Playtime)'', for piano, 1923 *''Caprice'', for piano, 1923 *''Whirligig'', for piano, 1923 *''Mr Crow and Miss Wren Go for a Walk (A Little Study in Short Trills)'', for piano, 1923 *''Kaleidoscopic Changes on an Original Theme, Ending with a Fugue'', for piano, 1924 *''Five Canons'', for piano, 1924 *Piano Preludes No. 1–5, 1924–25 *''Adventures of Tom Thumb'', 1925 *Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1926 *''Two Movements for Chamber Orchestra (Music for Small Orchestra)'', 1926 *''We Dance Together'', for piano, 1926 *''Piano Preludes No. 6–9'', 1927–28 (corrected version) *Suite No.1, for five wind instruments and piano, 1927, rev. 1929 *Suite No. 2, for four strings and piano, 1929 *''Five Songs to Poems by Carl Sandburg: Home Thoughts, White Moon, Joy, Loam, Sunsets'', 1929

Middle

*''Piano Study in Mixed Accents'' (three versions), 1930 *''Four Diaphonic Suites: No.1 for oboe or flute, No.2 for bassoon and cello (or two cellos), No.3 for two clarinets, No.4 for oboe (or viola) and cello'', 1930 *''Three Chants for Female Chorus: To an Unkind God, To an Angel, To a Kind God'', 1930 *''Three Songs to poems by Carl Sandburg'', for contralto, piano, oboe, percussion and optional orchestra: Rat Riddles, Prayers of Steel, In Tall Grass, 1930–1932 *

String Quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

, 1931 *Andante for Strings (after String Quartet Slow Movement), 1931 ? *Two Ricercare to poems by Hsi Tseng Tsiang: Sacco, Vanzetti; " Chinaman, Laundryman", 1932 *''The Love at the Harp'', 1932

Late

*''Nineteen American Folk Songs for Piano'', 1936–1938 *''Rissolty, Rossolty'', 1939–1941 *''American Folk Songs for Children'', 1948 *''Animal Folk Songs for Children'', 1950 *Suite for Wind Quintet, 1952 *''American Folk Songs for Christmas'', 1953

Unknown date

* Songs: Those Gambler's Blues, Lonesome Road, Lord Thomas, Sweet Betsy From Pike, Go to Sleep, What'll We Do with the Baby?, Three Ravens, A Squirrel is a Pretty Thing, Who Built the Ark?, Every Monday Morning, I Wish I Was Single

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * *

External links

Ruth Crawford Seeger Biography in 600 words
by David Lewis with a note by Peggy Seeger
"Ruth Crawford Seeger's Contributions to Musical Modernism"
by Joseph N. Straus, Fall 2001, vol. XXXI, No. 1, Newsletter, Institute for Studies in American Music (ISAM)
Art of the States: Ruth Crawford Seeger
''Nine Preludes'' (1924–1928) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Seeger, Ruth Crawford 1901 births 1953 deaths 20th-century American women musicians 20th-century American composers 20th-century classical composers 20th-century women composers American avant-garde musicians American classical composers American Conservatory of Music alumni American contemporary classical composers American experimental musicians American music educators American people of English descent American women classical composers Classical musicians from Ohio Composers for piano Deaths from colorectal cancer Deaths from cancer in Maryland Educators from Ohio Experimental composers Modernist composers People from East Liverpool, Ohio Pupils of Charles Seeger Pupils of Henry Cowell Seeger family String quartet composers Twelve-tone and serial composers