Tick, Ruth Crawford's Spiritual Concept (JAMS 44-2, 1991)

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Ruth Crawford's "Spiritual Concept": The Sound-Ideals of an Early American Modernist, 1924-1930Author(s): Judith TickSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), pp.221-261Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831604 .

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222 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYand proto-serial techniques.3 By and large, perhaps because of thenature and reputationof the Quartet, Crawford has been historicizedas an abstract formalist of "historical prescience,"4 without muchconsideration for or knowledge of her musical thought.There is another side to Ruth Crawford. Well before her workwith Charles Seeger, Crawford developed an aesthetic that sustainedher in the first part of her compositionalcareer. She worked it out inthe mid- and late 1920osat the same time that she crafted a post-tonalidiom. This study discusses her musical thought and selected com-positions written between 1926 and 1930, and shows the relationshipof style and idea to what she termed "spiritual concept": the core ofher transcendentalmodernism.

Crawford once wrote that the greatertruth for her was "feeling"anidea rather than thinking it, that "hertendency was toward 'spiritualconcept."' She "likedto wonder about things rather than know aboutthem."s Such wonder can be filled with awe as well as doubt. Whilea young composer in the late 1920os,Crawford "wondered"about therelationshipbetween music and life. She left a trailof her speculation,not in any formal or methodical fashion, but in her diaries, letters andpoems, as well as in her compositions. Her compositional environ-ment was permeated with philosophical and literary ideas and itsparked her ambition to infuse her music with spiritual values.As the daughterof a Methodist minister, Crawfordgrew up takingreligion seriously. In Jacksonville, Florida, where she spent heradolescence, she regularly attended church and midweek prayer

3 The most recent analysis is in David Nicholls, AmericanExperimentalMusic89o-i 94o (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990o),104-133; see also StevenE. Gilbert, "The 'Ultra-Modern Idiom': A Survey of New Music,"PerspectivesfNewMusicI2, nos. I-2 (1973-74): 282-314; MarkNelson, "In Pursuit of Charles Seeger'sHeterophonic Ideal: Three Palindromic Works by Ruth Crawford," The MusicalQuarterly72 (1986): 458-75; Judith Tick, "Dissonant Counterpoint Revisited: TheFirst Movement of Ruth Crawford's String Quartet 1931," in A Celebrationof WordsandMusic:Essaysn HonorofH. WileyHitchcock,d. RichardCrawford, R. Allen Lott,and CarolJ. Oja (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 405-21.4Mellers, Musicin a New FoundLand,xv.

5 Diary, 26 July 1929: "I like to wonder about things rather than know aboutthem. Do I really want peace? My tendency is toward spiritualconcept. I 'feel' it, mythought bends that way, yet I see great beauty in other concepts." Unless otherwiseindicated, Crawford'sunpublished letters, diaries and poems arelocated in the SeegerCollection, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 223meetings.6 All of this began to change in 1921, when she moved toChicago, which her mother described as having "the advancedatmosphereof the third largest city in the world."7Not surprisingly,her own commitment to Methodism waned and by the late 1920S shedistanced herself from the "personalelement" and the "too materialand literal" attitudes she associated with evangelical Christianity.8Unlike Charles Ives or Virgil Thomson, Crawford did not see thechurch music of her youth as a musical resource:her experience withreligion had been too strict to sustain nostalgiaor idealization.

Diary, 15 November 1927: Concretely since the Schlusnus concert[SchlusnuswasaGermanbaritone], bstractlyincethe last fewmonths,duringwhichI havebeenunconsciouslypreparingor the discovery,Isuddenly realize the close relationof the artistic and the religiousemotion;art and religionresult both from a need for man to expresssomethingbigin himself.The religious xpress hisup-flowing, xpand-ing, engulfing, loweringemotionby tryingto create betterconditionsaround hem,helpingpoorandsickpeople,or else simply by spendingthis not-containablejoy that threatensto burst them in worship of a greatGod. ... In the same way the composer of music releases these surgingpainful joys into tones, the sculptor into marble, the painter into colorand rhythm, the poet into sweeping words. . . . Doing this, they eitherexchange religion for their art, feeling no need for the former, or,merging the two in mystic beauty, attain greater heights in ther art,become spiritual,not simply "religious"andcreatorsin the highest sense.Crawford's spiritual manifesto was based on a group of ideas, notall of equal prominence, but nevertheless interactive and supportive ofone another. Among the most important are Theosophy, Easternreligious philosophy, nineteenth-century American Transcendental-ism, and the imaginativetraditionof Walt Whitman. Thus Crawfordwas drawing on an eclectic legacy of ideas and values that had beenlinked in American intellectual life since the turn of the century,9 to

6 Diaries from 1912 through 1914 as well as clippings in scrapbooksdescribe herinvolvement with the Methodist church. These diaries are in privatecollections. Theauthor is grateful to Michael Seeger and BarbaraSeeger for access to this material.7 Letter, ClaraCrawford to Ruth Crawford, 22 May 1922. Seeger Estate.

8 Diary, [2] September 927.9 These sources are analyzed as the core of a spiritualtradition in modern art inthe exhibition catalogue, TheSpiritual n Art: AbstractPainting189o0-985 (New York:Abbeville Press, 1986). This study owes a great deal to that catalogue. The mostgermane essays are Maurice Tuchman, "Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art," 17-62;Charles C. Eldredge, "Nature Symbolized: American Painting from Ryder toHartley," I13-30; and Lynda Dalrymple Henderson, "Mysticism, Romanticism, andthe Fourth Dimension," 219-38. See also Gail Levin, "Marsden Hartley and



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2 24 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

shape what one writer in 1909 termed "the New Spiritual AmericaEmerging."'"Theosophy, as is well known, attracted a number of Europeanartists, writers, and composers in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries." It also appealed to American artists andcomposers, although its currency is less documented in Americanmusic history.'" Theosophy as an organized religion was in fact aTransatlantic phenomenon, founded in New York in I875 by theRussian-born 6migr6 Helena Blavatsky, its major theorist, and hercolleague, Colonel William Olcott. The movement, led in the 920os

by the magnetic Englishwoman Annie Besant, reached its high pointaround 1927-1928, claiming 45,000 members in the world and 7,000in the United States.' 3New York and Los Angeles had substantial branches of Theo-sophical societies, as did Chicago, where Ruth Crawford lived from1921 through i929. Chicago had become receptive to esoteric philos-Mysticism," Arts Magazine(November 1985): 16-21, for illustrations of paintingsentitled "Cosmos" and "Oriental Symphony" as well a discussion of Hartley'sreadings of Emerson, Whitman and Blavatsky. In music Elliott Carter touches onmany of these same sources in "Expressionismand American Music," TheWritingsofElliott Carter,ed. Else and Kurt Stone (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press,1977), 230-42; see also Peter Garland, Americas:Essays nAmericanMusicandCulture(Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1982).,o Michael Williams, "The New Spiritual America Emerging," in a review citedby Henderson, "Mysticism," 224: "Emersonwas one of the prophets of the 'NewAmerica' and Walt Whitmanwrote its psalms. . . . New America is nothing else thanthat mystical and spiritual America which centers predominantlyabout the recogni-tion of new and hitherto unrecognizedpowersofMind. .... From the Orient too havecome contributing influences-Madame Blavatsky with her Theosophy and SwamiVivekenanda with his Vedanta philosophy."" The importanceof Theosophy to composersgoes beyond those mentioned hereas part of Crawford'scircle and dates from before the War. In addition to Scriabin,both Schoenberg and even Stravinsky found some musical stimulus in mystical orcosmic imagery and texts. The literatureis too diffuse to be cited here. For a generaldiscussion see Kyle Gann, "Spiritualityin Music: A Commentary and Discography,"The AmericanTheosophist5 (November 1987): 378-87; Karl Heinrich Woerner, DieMusik in der GeistesgeschichteBonn: H. Bouvier, 197o); Bruce F. Campbell, AncientWisdomRevived:A Historyof the Theosophical ovement(Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of CaliforniaPress, 1980).,2 Among American composers contemporaneous with Crawford, Theosophytouched the lives of Griffes, Cowell, and Rudhyarin varyingdegrees. The composerand kindred spirit Peter Garland discusses the ultra-modernsand spiritualaestheticsin Americas.Cowell met Rudhyar at Halycon, a famous Theosophical community inNorthern California. See RitaMead, HenryCowell'sNewMusic1925-1936: TheSociety,theMusicEditionsandtheRecordingsAnn Arbor: UMI Press, i981), 21.13 Campbell, Ancient Wisdom,78. See also Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A ReligiousHistoryof theAmericanPeople New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1972),1041.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 225

ophy particularlyafter Swami Vivekanandahad addressedthe WorldCongress of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, inaugu-rating what a contemporary Theosophist art critic described as "themissionary movement to the West."'4 In 1920o Sinclair Lewis in hisbest-selling novel Main Street ncluded Theosophy in his catalogue ofChicago's many cultural fads. 's In 1926 the city hosted the fortiethannual International Conventionof Theosophy, which Besant and heryoung proteg6 Krishnamurti attended with great fanfare.'6 Thecomposer Otto Luening found his way to the Theosophical Societyheadquartersin Chicago in the mid-twenties, readingmuch the samemixture of American, Eastern, and occult writers as Crawford.'7Thus Crawford was probably receptive to Theosophy because it wasin the air, at least among American intellectuals and artists in someavant-gardecircles.Theosophy was also a majorinterest of Crawford'spiano teacher,Djane Lavoie Herz, with whom she began to study in the fall of1923.18 Herz's influence on Crawfordwas formidable, and the youngcomposer idolized her as a musician and intellectual, "whose knowl-edge of philosophy and other subjects"was "phenomenal."'9MadameHerz often suggested books for her pupils to read. Some time after

'4 Claude Bragdon, OldLampsor New: The Ancient Wisdom n the ModernWorld(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1925), 31. Bragdon was a respected writer on esotericphilosophy. In chapter 7, "The Artist as Priest," Bragdon expresses a generalaesthetic quite similar to Crawford's spiritual concept. Whether Crawford knewBragdon'swork is not known.'5 Sinclair Lewis, MainStreet New York:Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920), 1o.His heroine Carol Kennicott "read scores of books unnatural to her gay whitelittleness: volumes of anthropology with ditches of foot-notes filled with heaps ofsmall dusty type, Parisian imagistes, Hindu recipies for curry, voyages to theSolomon Isles, Theosophy with modern American improvements, treatises uponsuccess in the real-estate business."16 Information about the 1926 convention is in "News Summary," TheChicagoDaily Tribune 30 August 1926):5; and TheTheosophist7 (November 1926): 120-21.The convention celebrated the founding of the nationalheadquartersat Wheaton, IL,a Chicago suburb.'7 Otto Luening, The Odysseyof an American ComposerNew York: Charles

Scribner's Sons, 1980), 230. Luening read Whitman, William Blake, and Tagorealong with Vedanta Yoga philosophers and the Theosophists Charles Ledbetter andAnnie Besant. He writes that "he becamedeeply involved in Hindu philosophy of allkinds"using the library at the Society center.'8 Djane (pronounced Di-anne) Lavoie Herz (I888-1982) was a Canadian-bornpianist and teacher who came to the United States about 1920, settling in Chicago.She later moved to New York, setting up a succesful piano studio. This informationwas supplied by herson Tristan Hearst in an interviewconducted by Nancy B. Reichfor the author, 7 September I985.'9 Diary, 26 August1927.



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226 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETY1924 Crawford read TheSecretDoctrine,the magnum opus of Blav-atsky.2"In 1927 she exhorted herself to read it yet again, for she "feltmore and more the need for it."" The composer Vivian Fine, whowas studying piano with Herz and theory with Crawford at the sametime, recalled that Blavatsky'sIsis Unveiledwas a book that she tooread in the 192os and one that Crawfordwould probably have knownas well.2"

Criticizing the religious ethnocentrism of the West, Blavatskypostulated an "Ancient Wisdom" or truth that united all religions in a"Universal Brotherhood." The sources of Ancient Wisdom flowedfrom a vast literature, unveiled to Adepts or the Masters of Wisdom,whose words Blavatskyrecorded. Indeed, the belief in cross-culturalexistential principles was precisely her point. Blavatsky drew onGreek myth, Scripture, legendarymystics like Paracelsus"3 ndJakobBoehme, and classic Easternreligious philosophers. Other writersandartists later used her theories to create visual analogies and literaryparadigms for the spiritual principles she postulated as truths. ThatBlavatsky's global pan-historical syntheses contributed to the emer-gence of Modernism has been demonstrated most recently in arthistory, as scholars have traced the varieties of "cosmic imagery"derived from Theosophy in the evolution of abstractart.24Crawford's affinity for the spirit of Theosophy surfaces in poetrywritten between 1925 and 1928 thatoccasionally employs such cosmicimagery. In a poem from 1928 she described the wheel of a street-caras the "God-signof the age-old mystics" becauseof its circular shape.In other poems Theosophical depictions of the Sun and Fire, whichare treated like elemental divinities, dramatize the genesis of hercreativity. "Shades of Dead Planets,"for example, depicts a "soulthatshall soar in the face of suns":

2o Helena P. Blavatsky, TheSecretDoctrineLondon:The Theosophical PublishingCo, i888.) This was the first of six volumes.21 Diary, [2 November] 1927." Interview with Vivian Fine, 29 November 1984. Isis Unveiled(1877; reprint,Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1972) was Blavatsky'sfirst book;Gitta Gradovain an interview 8 September 1984also stated that "allMadame Herz's

pupils read Isis Unveiled."23 A reference surfaces in Ives's song "Paracelsus" 192 i) based on a text byBrowning. The title "Arcana,"an orchestralwork by Varese (1927) comes from thewritings of Paracelsus. For the quotation Varese appended to the title page, seeCharles Hamm, Music in theNew World New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), 582.24 MauriceTuchman, "Hidden Meanings,"22-3 1, reproducesexamples of occultdrawings and paintings to illustrate the "fiveunderlying impulses: cosmic imagery,vibration, synesthesia, duality, sacred geometry." The translation of Theosophicalideas into music is discussed in "The EsotericNature of Music,"videotape(Wheaton,IL: The Theosophical Society, 1977).



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 227To burn ... ecstasyof pain....Even to burn,To touchflame,creator,destroyer..To fold unto me space,time,rhythm,form,Myselfto be depthunbottomed,To be all shadow,allflame,all planets ..Thro my heartthe pulseof universes,In my veins the liquidfire of all suns .. ..s

The desire to experience creative ecstasy through immolation is souncharacteristicof the earlier Ruth Crawford that this Prometheanpoem is surprising, a testimonial to her intense need to merge art andspirituality, as line four suggests.Yet despite such chapterand verse, Crawfordwas not a practicingTheosophist. Although she indicated her belief in the immortality ofthe soul (hardly an occult idea) she left no evidence that she adoptedmore extreme Theosophical concepts such as the belief in "auras"or"astral planes" of existence.'2 There were attempts in the UnitedStates in the 1920os to apply Theosophy to music, for example byDane Rudhyar and the pianist KatherineHeyman, but Crawford didnot involve herself to that extent."7 More important, Theosophyguided her to non-Western thought, for one of its goals was todisseminate the ideas of Eastern philosophy in the West.28Djane Lavoie Herz was the personal conduit for Crawford'sinterest in Easternthought. Both she and her husband Siegfried, whowas an agent for the music impressarioArthur Judson, were culti-vated people for whom Oriental culture and thought were major

25 The poem dates from December 1928.26 J. Stillson Judah, TheHistoryandPhilosophyfMetaphysicalMovementsn America(Philadelphia:The Westminster Press, 1967), i03, summarizes the concepts of astralplanes as those spiritualplanes on which the higher soul of man exists. According toBesant, the astral body emits various colors accordingto one's emotions that can beseen by a clairvoyant.27 See Katherine Ruth Heyman, The Relationof Ultra Music to ArchaicMusic(Boston: Maynard Small, 1921). "Archaic" refers to "Ancient Wisdom," while"Ultra"referred to the "ultra-modernist"style. Heyman is remembered by ElliottCarter as a "very progressive pianist"who was an advocate for new music, playingIves, Griffes, Rudhyar, some Schoenberg, and especially Scriabin. See VivianPerlis's oral history CharlesIves RememberedNew York: W. W. Norton, 1977),131 -32.2 Blavatsky,sisUnveiled,li, states hatthepurpose f the Societywas "toexperimentracticallyntheoccultpowers fNature, nd ocollect nddisseminateamongChristiansnformationboutOrientaleligioushilosophies."year fter heSocietywasfounded,BlavatskyecamenAmericanitizen, lthoughhe left forIndia soon after and never returned. Alhstrom, A ReligiousHistory, I041, points outthat Annie Besant strengthened the connection between Hinduism and Theosophy.



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228 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYinterests. Sculptures of Buddhas decorated their home, and incenseperfumed the air of Djane Herz's studio.29A young Ruth Crawfordwas seduced by an ambience that the composer Vivian Fine describesas "redolent with mystery."30Crawford freely acknowledged her involvement with both mysti-cism and Asian philosophy. She read the BhagavadGita and the TaoofLao-Tse. In 1928 she described herself as "especially interested inEastern philosophy," and in 1930 as "interestedin mysticism.'"3'Onone occasion she quoted an aphorism from the Bhagavad Gita in adiscussion with a skeptical friend about the purposes of art: "Thatman who sees inaction in action and action in inaction is wise amongmen."32Thus she was drawn to the central belief of wise passivenessin which meditative statis is the source of understanding.Crawford's interest in mysticism had importantlinks to Americanintellectual and spiritual traditions. One of them was nineteenth-century American Transcendentalism, with its links to Easternphilosphy understood by other artists as well.33 Vivian Fine recallsthat "Madame Herz or Ruth or both talkedabout Emerson, about theindividual. ... Because Madame Herz was so caught up in Easternphilosophy, there was some talk of Emerson's ideas."34Crawfordopened her 1927 diary with a long quotation from WaldenPond,underlining Thoreau's admonition to "probethe universe in a myriadpoints." Another referenceto the "honoredthoughts"of Emerson andThoreau underscores their stature.35 Crawford's nterest in Transcen-dentalism was that of a modern 1920os woman, not the

29 Interview with Tristan Hearst, 7 September 1985-30 Interview with Vivian Fine, 29 November 1984-3' Diary, 29 October 1928;Letter to Charles Seeger, ix November 1930. Seegerestate.32 Diary, 29 October 1928. The conversation was between Martha Beck, astudent at the American Conservatory of Music, and Beck's brother Norman.33 See Arthur P. Christy, TheOrient n AmericanTranscendentalism(1932; reprint,New York: Columbia University, 1960). Both Tuchman, "Hidden Meanings," 42and Eldredge, "Nature Symbolized," 1xx3,make this point about Emerson. Sherrye

Cohn, "Arthur Dove and Theosophy: Visions of a Transcendental Reality," ArtsMagazine September, 1983):86, connects Dove's mystical aesthetics to Transcenden-talism, pointing out the "historic tie between it and Vedic Scriptures [that] left alasting impression." Arthur Dove (188o-1946) was an American modernist painter.34 Interview with Vivian Fine, I6 April 1989.35 A quotation from Thoreau's "Thoughts on Nature" is the frontispiece to herdiary from 1927 and has these words underlined: "Probethe universe in a myriadpoints. . . . Whateverthings I perceive with my entire man, those let me record andit will be poetry." The comment about Emerson is from the Diary, [8 September]1927.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'SSPIRITUALCONCEPT" 229reverence of an Ives. Still, she regarded Emerson and Thoreau asintellectual and spiritual ancestors for her modernist aesthetic.

Walt Whitman was a far more pervasive influence on Crawford'ssensibility. Both as poet and philosopher, Whitman was a model forthe spiritualizing of the vernacular. In her diaries Crawford praisedparticularpoems from Leavesof Grass,one entry recounting a tellingincident at Djane Herz's studio: "I pick up a copy of Leavesof Grass,"she wrote. "I find a good many of the first verses of 'Song of Myself'underlined. I feel at home."36Some of her poems from 1927 and 1928are clearly derivative, veering off into unintentional parody, like "Ofthe wheels of streetcarsI shall sing."Whitman also represented the democratizing of inspiration thatmarks Crawford's aesthetic. Unlike German expressionists, whocharacteristicallysearched for material in the neurotic and the sub-conscious, Crawford most typically endowed everyday life withartistic expressiveness, penetrating the surface of the mundane forcreative content. Once she fervently declared that she would ratherwatch gnats undulate in the wind than the great ballerina Pavlovadance.37 "Natural" or unintentional artistic expression similarly out-ranked the conscious product of an artist. Hence, she wrote that theDempsey-Tunney heavyweight prize fight was "as glorious as adancing performance-no, much more glorious, for it is natural.'"38Crawford also interpreted Whitman as confirmation of her owncompositional stance towards sound sources. As Crawford read him,he did not divide sound into two camps, music and noise; heembraced the totality of the sonic universe.

Diary, 26 August 1927:What a sweep, like a greatwind fromthe sea.And themoreI readhim,thestrongerhebondthatgrowsbetweenhimand my own thought.It strikesme with greatforcethat some of hisfeelingsaboutthe city, come so close to mine. He has a love for therhythmsof whatsomepeoplecallnoises,-and these have orover ayearbeengivingmegreatpleasure sI ridethrothecitystreetson blunderingclumsystreetcars.The nameof the poem:"Sparklesromthe Wheel."Whitman's "Sparkles from the Wheel" is a portrait of a knife-grinder at work, sharpening a blade that releases "tiny showers ofgold" from his wheel. Only one line celebratessound, "thelow hoarsepurr of the whirling stone." For Crawford that was enough to forge

36 Diary, [28 September] 1927.37 Diary, 3 September 1927.38 Diary, 26 September 1927-



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2 30 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYthe identification. The related generalization she made that "one candraw a kind of dramatic or rhythmic or dynamic pleasure from thevery smallest things"39 s particularizedin other diary entries.

Diary,[ii] September1927:Manythings,either n motion o the eye orear,makeme chuckleinwardly;a pieceof paperhoppingalong,makinga littlejazzdanceof itsown, or thepoplareaves,orthebumpsofthebuson a brickstreet.Lastspringaninflatedemptyenvelope utmuchcaperswhen the wind found its cup, firstrushingacrossthe side walk, thensidlingalongenticingly,slowly astho doinga bit of quietflirting, hensuddenly urningmostunladylikeomersetsnto agrassplot,where t laydiscontented il it couldcreep stealthilybackto the sidewalk or moreacrobatics,-createdsuch a perfect scherzoof rhythmicvariety andsubtletythatI laughedrightout loud.Such eulogies recall aspects of the aesthetic of Ives, which,although not that of an orthodox Transcendentalist,40belong to thisgeneral spiritualtradition as it evolved after 19oo. Ives's overt interestin Whitman was fairly limited, but like Crawford he mediatedbetween style and idea through the transformedmetaphor.4' Rugglesalso admiredWhitman, using Whitman'stitle "Portals" or one of hisorchestralworks and setting two Whitman texts.42Crawford's admiration for Whitman was recapitulated in herfriendship with the contemporary Chicago poet, Carl Sandburg,whom she met about 1925 or 1926. As the piano teacher for hischildren, Crawford became an "informal daughter" of Sandburg,contributing musical arrangementsof American folk songs for hislandmarkanthology, TheAmericanSongbag1927).43 He in turn knewher as an artist as well, once describing her as "mystic and elfin withquality akin to Emily Dickinson."44

39 Diary, 2 September 1927. Gaume, RuthCrawford eeger,45, also comments onCrawford's "close personal relationshipto the city of Chicago, especially the sightsand sounds of the traffic"and "her beloved bus sounds."40J. Peter Burkholder, Charles ves: The IdeasBehind heMusic(New Haven andLondon: Yale University Press, 1982), 32.41 Ives's involvement with Whitman in no way matches his attachment to

Emerson, but he did plan various projects using Whitman texts and completed onechoral work with words from "Songof Myself." On Ives and "imitationsfrom nature"see Burkholder, Charles ves, 32.42 Carter, "Expressionism," 236-37; John Kirkpatrick,"The Evolution of CarlRuggles: A Chronicle Largely in His Own Words,"PerspectivesfNew Music6, no. 2(1968): 153-54-43 Gaume, RuthCrawfordSeeger,45-46.44 Letter of recommendation for Crawford from Carl Sandburg to the Guggen-heim Foundation, 5 December 1929 (copy in SeegerCollection, Libraryof Congress).



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 231Many diary entries and poems from the period suggest how shestrove to assimilate the imaginative vision of this poet.4s Walking inthe parkat Elmhurst, the Chicago suburb where the Sandburg familylived, Crawford experienced an epiphany that was close to bothWhitman and Sandburg's mystical sense of place.Diary,25November1927: feelasuddenaweregardingheground amtrodding.I have a suddenilluminatingense of theinconceivabledepth,massive,solid,that stretchesbeneathmy feet. I feel it is a kindof sacredthing,thiscontactof myfeet with thisawesome ubstance. feel thatmyfeet arebeating n regular hythma kind of hymnto the earth.

She subsequently set Sandburg'spoem "Loam"as a song for voice andpiano in a group of Five Songs (1929).46 Such pantheistic solemnitycould be tempered by the "elfin"quality that Sandburgliked, and shewas not above occasionally satirizing his technique.Diary, 26 July 1929: Sandburg:has he convictions?His spirit goesswooping nto byways, pinchinga pieceof dust andasking"Areyou afact or fancy?Have you a little dust-soulsomewhere?Where areyougoingand what for?"Sandburg'spopulism also appealedto Crawford. He was "righttosearch among down and outers for underlying poetry," she oncewrote, for he was "ten times more likely to find it there than in morepolite circles."47A foreshadowing of her later political alliance withthe rural underclass within American traditional music, this judge-ment shows that even as a so-called individualistic modernist, sherecognized the interplay between social class and art. Although hergeneration would later be excoriated for its "elitist"stance, Crawfordhad her own version of the Ivesian distinction between substance andmanner that she based on an American poetic tradition.4sLike the American visual artistswhose achievement"embodiesthe

paradoxical marriage of innovation and tradition in the genesis ofabstractart,"49Crawford used "spiritualconcept" as the basis for an

45Gaume, RuthCrawfordSeeger,45.46 This set is not the well-known group that includes "RatRiddles,"but an earlierwork that is being published by C. F. Peters, J. Tick, ed. (forthcoming, i99i).47 Diary, i i September 1927.48 There is no evidence in Crawford's diaries before 1930 that she knew Ives'swritings or music.49 Eldredge, "Nature Symbolized," 113-



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2 32 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETYan avant garde style in her music. It was aligned with her composi-tional development in a number of different ways, including thecomposers she honored as models and the stylistic issues she chose totackle.

Scriabin, a famous Theosophist, was one of Crawford's icons.50Comparing Bach's spiritual stature to that of Whitman, she addedScriabin to the trio: "Bach:another great soul. He and Scriabine areto me by far the greatest spirits born to music."5' In defendingScriabin to a fellow student, Crawford cited the critic Paul Rosen-feld's literary fantasiaon the composer, claiming that it "producedinme an effect deeper than almost anything I had ever read."s'5In Crawford's Piano Preludes 1924-1925, the Sonata for Violinand Piano and the Suite for Small Orchestra, Scriabin's influence onher harmonic palette was palpable, as others have pointed oUt;53 theissue of sonority rather than form was paramount. She freely adaptedhis method of constructing chords from various kinds of fourths,abandoned key signatures, and explored post-tonal language throughdense dissonant harmonies.

Although Scriabin was frequently performed by the ChicagoSymphony Orchestra,54Crawford was exposed to his piano musicand his aesthetics through Djane Herz and her circle. Indeed, Herzwas noted for the authenticity of her Scriabininterpretations:she wasa disciple whose devotion was founded on personal contact inBrussels, during the period in which Theosophy was particularlyimportant for him.55 In her own work she tried to replicate that

50 Scriabin's spiritual aesthetics remain controversial to this day. For a contem-porary assessment of Scriabin as a spiritual artist see A. Eaglefield Hull, A GreatRussianTonePoet:Scriabin(I922; reprint, New York:AMS Press, 1970).5' Diary,[26] August, 1927.52 Diary, 26 October 1927. Crawford was referringto Rosenfeld's essay "Scriab-ine" in Musical Portraits: Interpretations f Twenty ModernComposersNew York:Harcourt, Brace, and Howe, 1920), cited in Charles P. Silet, TheWritingsof CharlesRosenfeld:An AnnotatedBibliographyNew York: Garland, 1981). It is the onlyextended piece on Scriabin that Rosenfeld published before 1927.53 Interview with Vivian Fine, 29 November 1984:"Ruth'smusic before Charlie[Seeger] was influenced by Scriabin, mainly in the chords, the fourths, augmentedfourth plus perfect fourth." See also Gaume, Ruth CrawfordSeeger,133-35; DavidNicholls, "Ruth Crawford Seeger: An Introduction," TheMusicalTimes124 (1983):423.54 Scriabin's TheDivinePoemwas programmedannually from 1922 through 1941,with the exception of 1926, 1929, and 1932. "Prometheus"was performed in 1914,

193o, and 1937-55Herz, "Scriabine's Prometheus," MusicalCanadaio (May 1915): 3- "It wasduring my student days when in Brussels that I had the great happiness of meeting



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RUTH CRAWFORD'SSPIRITUALCONCEPT" 233experience.s6Crawford heard Herz's pupil Gitta Gradova play Scriabin inprivate during her lessons with Herz and in public at highly acclaimedrecitals.57In the fall of 1927 she wrote a poem describing Gradova'sperformanceof Sonata no. 4 as "thecataclysmic sweep of planets anduniverses."s8 Gradova's early brilliant success owed much to hercompelling interpretations of Scriabin.59When in an interview theyoung Gradova described Bach'smusic as a "sereneexpression of thehighest soul experience" and Scriabin's music as expressing "soulexperiences so lofty that this indeed may be termed 'music of theastral body,"' she summed up the world in which Crawfordmoved atthis time.6o

Among its gurus was the Franco-Americancomposer Dane Rud-hyar, who in fact discovered Theosophy through the friendship ofDjane Herz.6' Crawford met him at Herz's studio, a salon for newmusic in Chicago, when Rudhyar came to Chicago in 1925 and thenagain in 1928.62 In a letter to Charles Seeger Crawford describedherself as having made an "idol"of Rudhyar,"63and diary entriesfrom 1928 confirm this.

Diary, 9 November 1928:Tonight at Djane's ... Rudhyar reads somevery beautifulpoems. I begin to feel his beauty as never before.Previouslywhen he washereI haveadmired nd stood afarworshippingvaguely, you might say, intellectually,becauseI was dazzledby hisScriabine and that I had the privilege of being admitted into his circle of friends,when I was intiated in his philosophy of life which his music so perfectly expresses."56 E. French, "Around the Chicago Studios," TheMusicalLeader(13 December1923): 562.

57 "Gitta Gradova's Triumph," TheNew YorkTimes(14 December 1925); "GittaGradova," TheMusicalLeader(i7 December 1925): 539.58 This is a line from the poem "YourFace in My Hands," Autumn 1927.59 "ContemporaryAmerican Musicians," MusicalAmerica io January 1925): 23-"Miss Gradova[has]been hailed for her playing of Bach and acclaimed as the greatestinterpreterof Scriabin."Gitta GradovaCottle (1904-1985) also was acclaimed for herperformanceof Rachmaninoff'sPiano Concerto No. 2. See her obituary, TheChicagoTribune 28 April 1985). I am grateful to Dena J. Epstein for this information.6o Interview with Gitta Gradova, The MusicalLeader, (2 October 1924): 330.Gradovaat the end of her life was quite scornful of both her trainingwith Herz andher earlierTheosophical beliefs, although she was grateful for the Scriabin interpre-tations she received from her (interview with Gradova, 8 September 1984).61 Transcript of interview I8 March 1970 with Vivian Perlis (The Oral HistoryCollection of American Music, Yale University), 8: "She had quite a libraryof bookson occultism and Theosophy and so on. And I had known about it before but I meanI was too busy with other things.... But there I began to read."62 Gaume, RuthCrawfordSeeger,40-41.63 Letter from Ruth Crawfordto CharlesSeeger, i8 January1931. Seeger Estate.



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2 34 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETYerudition.Now I beginto "feel"hisgreatness.Somepartof the filmhasbeen liftedfrommy eyes, there s ariftin thecloudswhichwerebeforeso dense.Rudhyar was a messianic figure, whose passionate espousal ofutopian modernism affectedCrawforddeeply. In the 1920S he was atthe pinnacle of his musical career, publishing articles and books thatapplied Theosophy and Easternthought to music and art.64Rudhyarjustified post-tonal language through his own version of "spiritualconcept." He defined dissonance as spiritual symbol in the article"The Dissonant in Art,"6s which he delivered as a lecture for a

meeting of the Chicago chapter of Pro Musica in November, 1928.After the meeting Crawford quoted long excerpts in her diary,impressed by Rudhyar'svision of the brotherhood f man, which blends all as humanbeings,despite slight exteriors which are discordant.To bring togetherinharmonyar-relatedobjects s agloriousachievement. . . And so we seethatdissonance s alla matterof pointof view. It dependson us whetherwe look at it from a tribalor a universal pproach.

Thus through dissonance might the world be saved from the "feudal-ism" of tonality.67 Such analysis validatedCrawford'sown harmonicexplorations.Like the philosophes of the eighteenth century and early Frenchmodernists, Rudhyar attackedWestern musical practice as decadentand overintellectualized, rejecting the traditionalstructural forms oftonality and the techniques of counterpointas rationalisticratherthanintuitive.68 Perhaps deriving his method from surrealist ideas ofautomatism, Rudhyarclaimed he composed by letting his hands drop

64 Chase, America'sMusic, 466, discusses Rudhyar's thought and music, seeinghim as a forerunner of John Cage. Mead, Henry Cowell'sNew Music, 43 and 47,discusses his stature in the period and his relationshipto Scriabin.65 Dane Rudhyar, "The Dissonant in Art,"Art asReleaseofPower Carmel:Hamsa

Publications, 1930), 1-22.66 Diary, 1i November1928.67 In Rudhyar's philosophy, consonance was "tribal" because it representedexclusiveness or the primitive expression of sectarianconditioning. Dissonance was"universal"because it symbolized the inclusiveness of the Theosophical "UniversalBrotherhood." See Rudhyar, TheRebirthof HinduMusic(1928; reprint, New York:Samuel Weiser, 1979), 75 for a discussion of "tonalism as musical feudalism.""68Robert Morgan, "Secret Languages: The Roots of Musical Modernism,"Critical Inquiry io (March 1984): 449, discusses the reaction against the "ossifiedformal proscriptions"as characteristicof early modernism.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 235on the keyboard at random.69Without adopting his formal noncha-lance, Crawford accepted Rudhyar as "an inspiration leading her toexperiment with new ideas," rather than a model.70 His belief in"resonance," that is to say in homophonic textures of syntheticchords, did affect her more directly.7' Later she confessed to CharlesSeeger, the arch-contrapuntist,that she had "scornedcounterpointfortwo years" because of Rudhyar'sstance.7'Rudhyar'sgeneral musical influence on Crawford was duly notedby contempory critics like Paul Rosenfeld, who labeled Crawford amember of "the Rudhyar-Scriabine faction."73When he was ques-tioned about the matter near the end of his life, Rudhyar was carefulabout overstatingthe case. On the one hand, he dismissed the idea ofan organized "faction"as critical hyperbole: "What faction? . . . Itwas only Djane and me." Yet he surmised that the "first reallyinteresting music Crawford wrote" came after she heard his pianopreludes around 1925.74 His most revealing comment was his assess-ment of Crawford'sachievement. Although acknowledging the meritof the String Quartet i93 i, Rudhyarvalued her music from the 1920osmore highly than her latercomposition. It was more spontaneous, less"determined,"less "intentional.'"7'For Crawford "spiritualconcept"was an importantmusical value,albeit an elusive and difficult one to relate to specific compositionalprocedures. Yet there are details in severalworks that illuminate theways in which it is "absorbedand arrested,"to borrow a phrase fromWhitman's "Sparklesfrom the Wheel." Among these are (i) the localreferential gesture, exposed through expressive terminology like"mystic," "veiled,"and "religioso"; 2) the hidden program, in whichan untitled work is revealed to have an extra-musicalcontext; and (3)the free, imaginative recreationof Eastern sacred chant.Between 1926 and 1929 Crawford used the expressive marking"mystic" in two compositions. These are the Sonata for Violin and

69 MarthaBeck Carragan, interview, Ii July 1983.70Carraganin an interview with Rita Mead, cited in Mead, HenryCowell'sNewMusic, 109.7' Mead, HenryCowell'sNew Music, 88.

72 Letter from Ruth Crawford to CharlesSeeger, 18January 1931. Seeger Estate.73 Paul Rosenfeld, An Hour WithAmericanMusic(Philadelphia:J. B. Lippincott,1929), 99.74She heard some of the early preludes from Moments:A Set of iS TonePoemsforPiano(Boston and New York:C.C. Birchard, 1930). These were dedicated to DjaneLavoie Herz; some were later published as Tetragrams.75 Interview of Dane Rudhyar by Sorrel Doris Hays for the author, 19 March1984.



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236 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETYExample ICrawford,Sonata or ViolinandPiano,firstmovement,mm. 1-2. ? 1984,MerionMusic, Inc. Used by permission f thepublisher,TheodorePresserCo.

Vibrante, agitato (*.=50) >Violin a tempoIrit.

Piano a tempo

(If A//_

(A6A?B6B c E6F) (B B?CC#DFF#G)Piano I92676 in which the first movement has two moments marked"mystic"over them and a third movement, which is headed with thedirection "mystic, intense"; and the sixth piano prelude i927. TheSonata for Violin and Piano is the work that brought Crawford themost recognition before the String Quartet 1931.77In order to understand the two "mystic"events in the Sonata, afew comments aboutthe harmoniclanguagearenecessary. In the firstmovement, which is a truncated sonataform, the introductionand thefirst theme employ a series of chord-complexes of six and sevendifferentpitch classes at one time (see Example i). If one arrangesthepitches linearly, their common construction from chromaticsegmentsis clear, as is their interrelationship:each includes a six-note segmentof four half steps followed by a minor third. Although there aremanysimpler harmonies in the piece, these are characteristicformations.Crawford wanted dissonant intensity, which she achieved by embed-ding chromatic aggregates within her chords.There are two specific moments that are marked "mystic"in thismovement. One placed in the closing section (mm. 29-3 i) stands outprecisely because it departsfrom these verticalsonorities(Example 2).In fact, Crawford's "mystic chord" in measure 29 (C-F#-Bb-Eb-A-D)

76 The Sonata for Violin and Piano (New York:Merion Music, 1984) has beenrecorded by Ida Kavafian,violin, and Vivian Fine, piano, on CRI-SD 508. The scorewas presumed lost until the late 1970s, when Fine discovered it among herpossessions.77The Violin Sonata was performed in New York at a League of Composersconcert on 13 February 1927 and at the first concert of the Chicago chapter of theInternationalSociety of ContemporaryMusic on 8 February 1928. The revival of thework in 1982 was mistakenly described as a first public performance.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 237ExampleCrawford,Sonatafor Violin and Piano, firstmovement,mm. 29-3 . ? 1984, MerionMusic, Inc. Used by permission f thepublisher,TheodorePresserCo.

lungaSLento 30 lungat.. lunga

IF m-t. - . . t. unlunga mistico _______

is similar to Scriabin'sfamous sonority.78The structuralfunction ofthis "mystic" moment is linked to the value of spontaneity orunpredictability, that Rudhyar linked to intuitive compositional pro-cess. These two measures, occuring directly after a climactic passageand an arrival on a fortississimo chord, derail the momentum of thedrive toward the final cadential phrase. The fluid compound meterallows languid gestures unimpeded by metric downbeats. As if toemphasize its interpolative quality even further, the passage is fol-lowed by another fortissimo section, which restatesthematic materialfrom the Introduction.The earlier "mystic"passage(mm. 7-8) is somewhat different (seeExample 3). The chord is a carefullyvoiced chromatichexachord. Yetthe term "mistico"applies to more than the harmony, appearingfirstover the single tone, G#. Such a gesture seems disingenuous:how canone tone convey a mystic mood? The answer lies most likely inRudhyar'stheory of the symbolic content of the single tone, which hetook from non-Western music.79 It was a leitmotif in his thought atthe time: Crawford noted a few years later, "I heard much of the

78 James M. Baker, TheMusicofAlexander criabinNew Haven and London: YaleUniversity Press, 1986)uses Forte's set terminology to describe verticalsonorities. Inhis terms (p. 166) the pc set that Crawford uses here (o,1,2,5,6,9) is 6-Z28. Itcombines with anotherset to form what Bakercalls a "secondarynexus which is usedmore widely than all sets except 6-34 .. ." (This pc set better known as the "mysticchord.")

79 Chou Wen-chung, "Asian Concepts and Twentieth-Century Composers," TheMusicalQuarterly57 (197 ): 2 5-16: "apervasiveChinese concept"is "thateach singletone is a musical entity in itself, that musical meaning lies intrinsically in tonesthemselves, and that one must investigate sound to know tones and investigate tonesto know music." Rudhyar'sviews are discussed generally.



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238 JOURNAL FTHEAMERICAN USICOLOGICALOCIETYExample 3Crawford,Sonata orViolin andPiano,firstmovement,mm. 7-8. ? 1984,MerionMusic, Inc. Used by permission f thepublisher,TheodorePresserCo. lunga

ti rit.

lunga

S-mistico r t

'single tone.""'8oAmong Rudhyar's published explanationsof its mean-ing is this passage from TheRebirthof HinduMusic, which Rudhyarclaimed that "Crawford must have read":8'A tone is a livingcell. It is composedof organicmatter.It has thepowerof assimilation, f reproduction,f making xchanges, f growing.It is amicrocosmosreflecting aithfully he macrocosmos,ts laws, its cycles,its centre.Concentrate n a cell, and the mysteriesof the universemaybe revealed o you therein. Concentrate n a tone and in it, you maydiscover he secretof beingand findIshwara, he Christwithin.8,

Thus Crawford's expression of "mystic" in relation to a single tonewas intended to alter the performer'smentality, changing the natureof the concentration that would somehow be communicated throughtouch.That it was not a capricious gesture is demonstratedin laterworks,albeit in a less explicit context. A single repeated tone opens thechambersuite, Music for Small Orchestra(see Example4).83Further-more, the symbolism of the single tone was apparently used seman-

8o Diary, 3 May 193o, New York. By that time Crawford was much moredetached from Rudhyar's theories and immersed in dissonant counterpoint withCharles Seeger.8i Rudhyar's comment about Crawford's knowledge of this book is in a letter tothe author, 5 October 1984.

82 Rudhyar, TheRebirth fHinduMusic, i8. See also "The Mystic's Living Tone,"ModernMusic7, no. 3 (1929-30): 32-36.83 This work, written in 1926, is in two movements and has been recordedby theBoston Musica Viva on Delos Records 25405, 1975, under the title "Two Movementsfor Chamber Orchestra." The title differs in the various catalogues of compositionsmade by Crawford; "Music for Small Orchestra" is on the holographscore.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 239Example 4Crawford,Music or SmallOrchestra,irstmovement,mm. 1-3, short core.The Estateof RuthCrawfordSeeger.Usedby permission.

Slow, pensivepiano violins piano

clarinetbassooncelli

tically by other composers in the Herz circle. Vivian Fine remembershow "we wrote low notes with the word mystic over them" in thisperiod.84The association between mysticism and post-tonal harmony isexplored further in the sixth prelude for piano (1927), marked"Andante Mystico" and dedicated "with deep love and gratitude toDjane, My Inspiration" (see Example 5).85 Here Crawford's thickresonating chords are deconstructed into intervallic components. Acyclic ostinato pattern appears in the right hand as the upper line,presenting eight ascending dyads containing all twelve notes of thescale.86 The high range of the right hand most likely symbolizescelestial regions and the spirituality Crawford associated with Herz.The extraordinary pedal markings, demanding unusual, constantsostenuto in the left hand and damper effects in the right, produce"continuous sound."87 Crawford was probably influenced here byRudhyar'sproselytizing for "theparamount mportanceof the pedals"in "blending chords":

Whereasntheclassicalonalmusiceachdistinctharmonyhadto keep tsresonanceseparate,n this"syntonistic"musicthere s intheorybut one84 Interview with Vivian Fine by the author, 29 November I984.85 Crawford'sPreludes for Piano, nos. 6-9, were published in Cowell's New MusicQuarterly October 1928). They have been recordedby Virginia Eskin for Northeast-ern Records NR 204, 1981, and Rosemary Platt on Coronet, COR 3126.86 Mead, HenryCowell'sNew Music, io9.87 Eugene Flemm, "The Preludes for Piano of Ruth Crawford Seeger"(D.M.A.diss., University of Cincinnati, 1987), 17 and 21, states that "the pedaling is uniquein piano repertoire. . . . Both the sustaining and sostenuto pedals act as sustainingpedals. The sustaining pedal controls the upper voice duet, changing every two orthree notes, while the sostenuto pedal 'sustains' the melody and lower arabesquefigures out of which the melodic lines are initially carved. . . . From measure 18, allthree pedals are in operation. . . . Thus this Prelude results in continuous sound,since the regular'breathing'of the sustaining pedal is always covered by the slowermoving sostenuto pedal."



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240 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYharmony, hatof the wholebodyof Sound or of Nature,andthereforechordsmust be made usuallyto blend their resonances...88

ExampleCrawford,Prelude or Pianono.6, mm. 1-3. ? 1928.New MusicEdition.Usedby per-missionof TheodorePresserCo.

Andante mysticolegatiss. _ _ _

bI - B O mzI

cp S3

I i

7t F

II IsoI ii

V~ -P , I I-oI I

7"I I.. . ." I

Sost. g'ICrawford both embraced and denied the existence of programprocedures in her music, seeking inspiration for specific works inextramusical sources, but publicly severing the impulse from itsconsequence. Her diary is the only surviving record of the hiddenmeaningof the ninth piano prelude, which she dedicated to the pianistRichard Buhlig.8"Apparently moved by a conversation to disclose its

88 Rudhyar, Moments,preface.89 Richard Buhlig (188o- 952) was an early advocate of Schoenberg as well asAmerican modernist composers. He played Crawford's ninth prelude at a Copland-Sessions concert on 6 May 1928 and a New Music Society Concert on 24 October1928. See Mead, HenryCowell'sNew Music, o102-3. He also played one unidentifiedprelude as partof his lecture-recitalseries"Landmarksn Five Centuries of KeyboardMusic," listed on a programfor 28 and 30 March 1931. Buhlig's interest in Easternphilosophy and his vision of utopian modernist music of a "morecosmic character"



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RUTH CRAWFORD'SSPIRITUALCONCEPT" 241program, Crawford recorded the event.

Diary,29October1928:I tell Norman Beck]whatProf.Symondsaidofmy9thprelude,whenI told himitsprogramromLaotze'sTao.He said,"It s verydifficulto expresscalm'nmusic.I askmyselfout loud if thatis not true,since music s supposed o be ane-motive sic] xperience,aneffort o sendforthout of one'sself certainstrong eeling hatcannotstayinside.But Normanreplies,and I amquitemovedby it, "No;I wouldsayrather hat musicis an effort o gaincalm."Whichbrings o my lipsMadame'sDjaneHerz's]distinctionbetweenthe artistandthe mystic:the latter s simplyfartheralongthe roadwhichthe former s travelling:he hasgone beyondthe needforexpression.Unlike Ives, whose literary sensibility flooded his music withtitles, quotations, and programs, constantly directing the listener torepresentational reception, Crawford separatedprocess from finishedwork of art, once describing herself as a "scorner of titles."90 Shemight reveal a program in private, but she would not direct aperformeror a listener in a certain path. Thus there is no indicationof this programin the score for the ninth prelude, and its expressivemark of "tranquillo"is hardly sufficient to interpret the work as aspiritualstatement. It was not a case of believing in music as absoluteor "pure"in the nineteenth-century sense of the term, but rather amatter of reticence about spiritualbelief and the role of the composerin controlling the interpretation.Why should she reject the "literal"and the "personal"element in Methodism only to replace it with theliteral in mysticism?A program, as she saw it, was a point of departure for thecomposer, rather than a representationalguidepost for the listener,and her love of the abstract surface that hid private references wastypical of her modernism. When she heard a performanceof Ives'sThree Places in New England, her reaction was revealing: "Ives isprobably much greater than I realize. But the middle movement,sounding like a band concert and a prayer meeting hymn festprejudices me violently."9'

are mentioned in Nancy Wolbert, "RichardBuhlig, A Concert Pianist: His Careerand Influence in the Twentieth Century"(M.A. thesis, California State University,Long Beach, 1978), 63.90 Letter from Ruth Crawford to CharlesSeeger, 17October 1930. Seeger Estate.9' Diary, New York, February 1930. Crawford did not identify the work byname but mentioned that it was played at a rehearsalof the InternationalSociety ofContemporary Music. Thus it had to have been the performanceof ThreePlacesby



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242 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETYCrawford preferred the paradoxical aphorisms of Eastern mysti-cism to Ivesian quotation. Although we do not know which aphorism

from the Taoinspired the ninth piano prelude, the clue about "calm"in the diary entry may refer to the "wise passiveness" Crawfordquoted from the BhagavadGita as well. For Lao-Tse the Tao(orDivinePrinciple) reveals itself through a tranquility whose perfection isemphasized through the contrast with periodic motion, as suggestedby this passage:Attain the utmost n Passivity.Hold firm to the basis of Quietude.The myriad hingstakeshapeand riseto activity,But I watchthem fall backto theirrepose.Likevegetation hatluxuriantly rowsButreturns o the root(soil)fromwhich it springs.9'

The opening section of Crawford's prelude (see Example 6)suggests the cosmic nature of tranquility through a number oftechniques. One is the enormous musical space bounded by the twointerval fields associatedwith the lower and upper registers, evokingthe earth below and the sky above. In the left hand a tetrachord,almost at the bottom of the keyboard, oscillates between two majorseconds that define the lower and upper limits of a whole-tone scale;its murky sonorities are blurred even further through its extremesoftness ("ppp")and the pedaling, which enhances its resonance inRudhyar'smanner. In the right hand an arc of parallelsevenths morethan five octaves away descends from B6 / A in measure4 to its loweraxis F / E in measure 7, climbing back up in a quasi-retrograde.Underneath the activity of the opening eight measures arefive pairsofsevenths that chromatically fill in the tritone from E to Bb. Here isanother example of the association between meditative statis, whichwas called "mystical" in the Sonata for Violin and Piano, and thestructural reliance on dissonance controlled through a chromaticpitch-collection.Crawford's handling of rhythm supports the mood of complextranquility as well. The left hand ostinato is never presented in thesame rhythmic proportions,althoughit is repeatedseven times in ninemeasures. Similarly, in the right hand the phrases are of irregularNicholas Slonimsky and the Boston ChamberOrchestraon 16February 1930, playedbefore the American Section of the InternationalSociety of Contemporary Music.See Ives, Memos,238.

92 The Wisdomof Laotse,trans. and ed. Lin Yutang (New York: The ModernLibrary, 1948), 1o8-9.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 243Example 6Crawford, Prelude for Piano no. 9, mm. I-9. ? 1928. New Music Edition. Used by per-mission of Theodore Presser Co.

Tranquillo =63)

I ~9ppT#~p-It --I" (- --

8va-------------I 8---------------- 8

,sotto voce

m

-- --

---

.....1 WF8__ _ I_

L-

8- - -- -- ------------------i rd

Ilecl

length, rarely coinciding with the downbeat of the barely perceptiblemeter. The steady stream of quarter notes that rise and fall in tidalmotion is echoed in miniature by the left-hand ostinatos.

After Crawford left Chicago, the influence of Djane Herz and hercircle receded from her life. In 1929 she moved to New York in partto study dissonant counterpoint with Charles Seeger, who did notdisguise his disapprovalof what he perceived as lack of form in her



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244 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

early music93or his skepticismabout Rudhyar's mystical aesthetics.94Nevertheless, Seeger himself had been involved with a Yoga commu-nity in the mid-I92os and he knew and respectedAsian philosophy.95Crawford transplantedher spiritual interests to New York, wherethey thrived in a new way, becoming more focused on actual Easternmusic rather than esoteric philosophy. Two significent encounterswith what Crawford later termed generically "Easternsound"'6 aredescribed in her New Yorkdiary. The firstwas somewhat metaphoricin that one exotic experience is translated into another. In October,1929 Crawford and her friend the composer Marion Bauer visited

the studioof Mr.Kornsteinor a fascinatingwohoursof quarter, ight,andsixteenth-tonemusicplayedby anensembleof onecello,onevoice,octavina, rumpetandzither.They playmusicofJulianCarrillowrittenfor these infinitessimalntervals. ... The music is extremelyoriental,Hindu in effect as Carrillowrites it. On the orderof chant. Veryfascinating ndmoving.97No further clues about Crawford'sprior experiences with Hindu

music are offered, although it is quite possible that Rudhyar couldhave provided her with them. Yet her comments offer some insightinto the appealof the East in the evolution of early twentieth-centurymodernism. As is well known, many Western composers decadesearlier had been attracted to the exotic surface of Easternmusic, to thenew timbres of its instruments, to its associationswith non-Westernspirituality and even to its evocations of primitivist ritual. The pointhere is the continuing appeal and fertile suggestiveness of non-Western music for a post-War avant garde as well: microtonalism, a

93Mead, HenryCowell'sNew Music, 215.94 Charles Seeger, "Reviewing a Review," Eolian Review 3 (November I923):16-23. This is a fierce dismissive response to an earlier review by Rudhyar of CarlRuggles's piece "Angels."95 Charles Seeger, "Reminiscencesof an American Musicologist," Transcripts ofinterviews I969-i972, Oral History Program(Los Angeles: University of California,1972), 164. The influence of Eastern philosphy on Charles Seeger's thought ispursued by Anthony Seeger, "Using the Charts in Charles Seeger's SystematicMusicology: Getting Around on the Road Maps," (unpublishedtypescript, 1987), 8.The author is grateful to Anthony Seeger for sharing this paper with her.96 Letter from Ruth Crawford to Carl Sandburg, 26 January I931. SandburgCollection, University of Illinois.97 Typescript of excerpts from letters to Alice [Burrow],New York, September1930 through January 1931. On Julian Carrillo's music see David H. Cope, NewDirections n Music, 5th ed. (Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1989), 69.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 245way to validate and expand post-tonal explorations, was at leastpartially stimulated by an "increasing awareness of non-Westernmusic" in the early I9oos.98Crawford's second experience was more pertinent. In the winter of1930 Seeger, Cowell, and Crawford went to see the performanceofthe Chinese actor Mei Lan-fang. Cowell, who would later give alecture on "Newly Discovered Oriental Principles" as part of hiscourse "A World Survey of ContemporaryMusic" at the New Schoolfor Social Research,99told Crawford "a few things about Chinesesinging." Undoubtedly Cowell shared more of his theories withCrawford, but here was a direct contact. Mei's vocal techniquesastonished her.

Diary, 27 February,193o:Hooksas he calls them. Approacha notebya slidefrombelow, and sustain he note. Or by a slide from aboveandsustain he note.Or leave henotein eitherof theseways.Thereare also.combinations f thesehooks, nfinitealmost.At thetheaterwe hearwhatHenry means. Mei takesonly women'sparts.This means he is a verygreat actor. . . . We are in anotherworld tonight. On anotherplan-et ..In contrast to Colin McPhee who was enthralledby instrumentalcolor,'oo CrawfordassociatedEasternsound with the human voice; incontrast to Henry Cowell, who began to define his interest innon-Western music in ethnomusicological rather than modernistterms by 1930,0o' Crawford continued to respond to its spiritualresonances, as her comment about being "onanotherplanet"suggests.

The following year she produced her own reinterpreted synthesis oftheir import in a set of pieces written while she was in Berlin on aGuggenheim Fellowship.Sometime in the spring of 1930, Crawfordreceived a commissionfrom Gerald Reynolds, the conductor of the Women's UniversityGlee Club in New York. The work was to be performedin a concert

98 Chou Wen-chung, "Asian Concepts," 2i8.99 Cowell's course is listed in the Catalogueof the New School for Social Researchfor the spring I930 semester. The lecture is described as "New discoveriesconcerningOriental musical practice and science recently made by musicologists in Russia, andhere. Amazing contrasts of Oriental standpoints with our musical views."'" CarolJ. Oja, ColinMcPhee:Composern Two Worlds(Washington, D.C., andLondon: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 152, discusses McPhee's and Cowell'sexposure to Balinese recordings in 1931.,o' Cowell was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study with the leadingmusical anthropologist Erich Von Hornbostel in Berlin, during 1931-32.



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246 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYof works written for the group by holdersof Guggenheim Fellowshipsand to take place in December, 1930.'10 Reynolds was a progressivemusician, who had premiered many works by American composers,turning his chorus of amateursinto what Marc Blitzstein later called"a happy hunting ground" for new music.'03 Crawford decided towrite a set of Chants or Women'sChorus hat would draw on theambience of Oriental music. Apparently she explained this to Rey-nolds before she left for Europe, for in October 193o he sent herscores by Gustav Holst, a devoted Theosophist. The pieces, notidentified in the correspondence, were doubtless the second and thirdset of ChoralHymnsromtheRig Veda,which Reynolds had performedsome years earlier.10o4Crawford thanked Reynolds: Holst's music was "ahelp."''5 Thiscould have been nothing more than courtesy. On the other hand,Holst's hymns, which were prayers to Hindu deities (e.g. "ToVaruna," "To Agni"), may have prompted her to "suddenly breakinto titles and into a definite desirethat the title should accompany theperformance,"'o6 although she later vacillated about this.,07 Between6 October and io November 1930 Crawford wrote "To an UnkindGod," "To an Angel," and "To a Kind God." The first two were

"'2 The programtook place on 18December 1930. Clippings file for the Women'sUniversity Glee Club and Gerald Reynolds, Music Division, New York PublicLibrary.103 MarcBlitzstein, "New YorkChronicleof New Music,"ModernMusic8 (193i):40.104 In Sheila Lumby and Vera Hounsfield, eds., The Catalogueof Holst's Pro-grammes ndPressCuttings n theCentralLibrary,CheltenhamLondon:G. and I Holst,1974), 43, there is listed a program of the Women's University Glee Club forMonday, December 17, n.y., in which Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda wereperformed. The year was most likely 1923, since an examination of WUGC programseliminates other possible dates. I am indebted to BarryWeiner for this information.1,o Letter from Ruth Crawford to Gerald Reynolds, i i October 193o. New York

Public Library. There is some superficial resemblance between Holst's "FuneralChant," the third of the second set of ChoralHymnsand Crawford's Chant,"To anAngel." Holst uses a steady ostinato stream of quarter notes in intervals for theopening section, as does Crawford.io6 Letter from Ruth Crawford to Charles Seeger, 17 October 1930. SeegerEstate.107 A subsequent undated letter to Seeger, quoted in Gaume, Ruth CrawfordSeeger, 6o, states that "the Reynolds Chants have lost their titles and I think it's muchbetter." Nonetheless, the programof the Women's University Glee Club lists it as"To an Angel" and the composer's own list gives titles for the first two.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S "SPIRITUAL CONCEPT" 247written quickly between October 6 and I6; the third took more time.A fourth was planned but never materialized.,os

The Chants are relatively unknown works.'0o9Only one has beenperformed and published, and the manuscriptsfor the first and thirdChants were presumed lost until 1976. For at least the first two, theirgenesis in Crawford's nterest in Easternthought would be speculativewithout the evidence supplied in private correspondence. Docu-mented there is the rationale behind her unusual approachto text. Allthree Chants use invented syllables formed from phonemes. Corre-spondence between Crawford and Seeger revealsthat initially she hadplanned to use Sanskrit text from the BhagavadGita. Since an Englishtranslation was unavailable in Berlin, making "the Sanskrit plan notpossible," it freed her to do what she "had wanted to do foryears-invent my own syllables.""o Crawford collated sounds fromboth English and German, describingthe result as "alanguageof myown-consonants and vowels in a kind of chant which sounds quiteEastern."'''The Chantsor Women's horus ccupy a specialplace in Crawford'soeuvre, each written in an idiom that she developed for it but virtuallynever used again. They aretransitionalworks, retaininga few aspectsof her earlierChicago style in harmonic language, and to some extentforeshadowing her later formal preoccupations. Although influencedby Seeger's theory of dissonance as a concept to be applied to manyparametersof music, Crawfordexperimentedwith what she termed a"looser style," writing him "there were many things [done] notaccording to A ManualofDissonantCounterpoint.""'

,o8 The chronology of composition is based on letters between Crawford andReynolds on i i and 15 October 1930 and io November 1930. The fourth Chant wasto be titled "To a Gargoyle";it is mentioned in a letter from Crawford to Seeger, 9October 1930. Seeger Estate.'"9For other discussionsof these pieces see Gaume, RuthCrawford eeger,I59-65,and Nicholls, AmericanExperimentalMusic, 12-16. Neither author mentions Craw-ford's interest in the BhagavadGita as a text source. Gaume, RuthCrawford eeger,135,says that "Crawfordwas probably aware of Scriabin'sexperiments with inventing anew language for his 'Mysterium."'"o0Letter from Ruth Crawford to Gerald Reynolds, 13 October 1930. New YorkPublic Library.'' Letter from Ruth Crawford to Carl Sandburg, 26 January 1931. SandburgCollection, University of Illinois.", Letter from Ruth Crawford to Charles Seeger, ii October 1930. SeegerEstate. For a discussion of this Manual, see Tick, "Dissonant Counterpoint," 412.The "looser"style probably refers to Crawford'suse of repeatedpitches. Seeger heldgenerally that a pitch should not be repeateduntil eight to ten different pitches hadintervened.



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248 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETYThe letters between former teacher and pupil surrounding thecomposition of these works vividly testify to the push and pull

between theory and practice. Among the issues were the use ofrepeated notes more frequently than sanctioned by Seeger; thereferences to functional harmony, however attenuated;and a generalsense of greaterrelationship among the partsthan proposed by Seegerin his explanation of the heterophonic ideal.The first Chant, "To an Unkind God," lasts about two minutesand is only thirty-seven measures long but gives the impression ofgreat density and energy, so mercurial are its rhythms and rhetoricalits textural contrasts. This Chant is oration rather than ritual. Thereare three parts set out at the beginning (labeled by number butgenerally SSA) with an additionalsopranosolo and a section in whichone part is divided; more often than not one line functions as leaderagainstsustainedsingle tones or whole-step pedal points. The openingphrase begins with a duet in unison and and ends with a passage ofOrientalized vocalise, the ornamented notes and nasal syllables recall-ing Cowell's description of Mei Lan-fang's singing (see Example 7,mm. i-9). In subsequent sections of more complex dissonant coun-terpoint the lines move frequently by chromaticor whole-step motioninterspersed with minor thirds.Harmonies based on the cell of half-step plus third form the basisof the surprising homophonic climax (see Example 8). Another cellC0-D-D#, prominent in the opening phrase(see Example 7) returns toshape the counterpoint after this section. The interval CO-D#func-tions as a quasi-tonal center of sorts, flavoring the work with"tonalitous"moments"3 since it is used both for harmonicpedals andmelodic cadential gestures. A brief excerpt must suffice here. InExample 9 the end of one phrase (m. 23) returns to the CQ-D# n thesame rhythm of the cadence in measure 9 (see Example 7). As thephrase elides into the next, the whole-step cell is used in the lowerparts, transposedto the fresh sound of the B6-C pedal (see Example 9,m. 24).- '4 This was a moment Seeger particularly relished and headvised a rewrite of the end of the Chant because of it; a detailedcriticism of the last few measures proposed "one return of the reallyexquisite B'-C naturalpedal point"and also a returnof the strong E6

1"3 "Tonalitous"was Seeger'salternativeto "tonal,"to distinguish between beingrelated to tonality as opposed to being related to tone. He, like Schoenberg, did notlike the word atonal."4 Nicholls, AmericanExperimentalMusic, i 3, points out that this cell ends thesecond Chant and is crucial to the formation of the two cluster chords in the thirdChant as well.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 249Example 7Crawford,Chant,"To an UnkindGod,"mm. i-9. The Estateof RuthCrawfordSeeger.Used by permission.

S=60

NG-YE YE-U E YE NAH YU

DRU

un poco ritard

AH KU YA KO LYU NG-O

atenmpod 3 /.CHYAH' BYO KRAH A E U0 YE 0 LA CHYAHp

.jj ( (free)

CHYAH AH NAH NYE

E as in Englishword "the."CH as in German.NG as in English participle"ending."U and O as in German.

cadence."' Crawford adopted this suggestion, but couldn't resistteasing him about this "shameful"sign of weakness.13 November 1930:Curious: at the end, I too had wanted a return to the E-flat, as at thebeginning, but had abandoned it because of the reason you suggest: aconsonance of form. Since you also had a shameful longing for suchshocking consonance, I think I shall put it in.

"5 Letter from Charles Seeger to Ruth Crawford i November 1930. SeegerEstate.



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250 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYExample 8Crawford, Chant, "To an Unkind God," m. 15

F--S-----3

33CHYE NLA NG-AH LE O NG-RU CHYO KAThe second Chant, "To an Angel," was, Crawford told Seeger,"thought entirely harmonically ... to produce the effect.""'6 In-tended to contrast with the volatility of the first chant, this piece isserene and monochromatic. It is written for two choral parts (num-bered I and 2 but functioning as soprano and alto) and one sopranosolo.'7 Only the latter sings invented syllables against a backdropofchoral humming. Crawford requested the choir to maintain a "com-plete monotony of tempo and 'white' tone throughout.""8 Here is a

more conventional view of Oriental calm; indeed the rhythm ofregular breathing is reinforced by the lull of the triple meter and thesteady streamof quarternotes, variedonly throughoccasional rests onfirst beats or longer cadences. The main material of this Chant is anostinato patternof intervals,dominatedby thirds and sevenths, whosefrequent alternation suggests an image of organic expansion andcontraction. At the end of its firstfive-measurestatement it covers thetotal chromatic (see Example io).According to Crawford, this Chant displayed "acertain loosenessof technique" regarding the handling of repeated tones. Was it aconcession to the limits of the Glee Club or "aconviction that this isthe way I want the music to sound," she asked rhetorically, ambiva-lent about the results:I vary between an objectiveviewingof it as bad, impressionisticndworthless,anda secretlikingfor its simplicityand a slightlyfascinatedinterest n the fact thatthe secondpartwandersaboutnaively n its own

1i6 Letter from Ruth Crawford to Charles Seeger, 26 October 1930o.SeegerEstate."7 "To an Angel" was published in a version Crawford later made for mixedchorus and sopranosolo as Chant,193o(New York:AlexanderBroude, 197 ) and wasrecorded in this version by the Gregg Smith Singers (Vox SVBX-5353, 1979)-"8 See Nicholls, AmericanExperimentalMusic, 1' 3.



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RUTH CRAWFORD'S SPIRITUALCONCEPT" 251tonality(which was not planned)while the effect is dissonantvertically."9

Example9Crawford, Chant, "Toan Unkind God," mm. 23-24

3 3 ;>---3Solo(L_ _

cresc,moltoRO NG-YE KALAHCHYO NG LAH U YO

SA H dim. poco a poco

YE A RU SRAH KYO SRAH NYE TE

After this contemplative composition, Crawford produced themost radical Chant of the set. Initially titled "To a Kind God," it wasinspired by Seeger's enthusiasm for Crawford's plan to use theBhagavad Gita as a text source. His vivid description of Eastern chant,in a letter written shortly after Crawford arrived in Berlin, provedcatalytic:

My dear, your letter to Blanche (she showed it to me) was fine. . . . I wasmuch delighted at your getting to work on the Gita idea. Remember, theflowing line. . . . A pivoting reiterative line would well suite the Gita. Ifin three parts, one could deliver the text and the other two could repeatover and over the pranava OM (or-uu-mm). I have forgotten thenumber of counts to be given to each of the three syllables at differenttimes, but any proportion such as 2-1-4/8-4-16. There is a moreinterestingproportioninvolving a total of nine counts that I have a recordof in Paterson. If I can find it soon, I shall send it to you. . . . When thepranavais pronounced in earnest it [is] done at the pitch most suited tothe individual voice regardlessof any harmonic relation with the otherpitches of other voices sounding it at the same time (it is done in a crowdin all the monasteries). Each voice, however, has a tendency to rise ininflection at the end of each breath(very long breath of course, a kind ofhum), and as the repetitions go on, the pitch gradually gets lower andlower. If kept on long enough-say twenty minutes-the men's voicesespecially (but the women's also), attain an almost incredible impressionof depth and the whole body vibrates to the sound as if in an electricshock machine. If you wanted to make a complex dissonant veil of soundfor the chanting voice to cut through, this idea would be suited. (Theproportion adding to nine is 2-3-4). (Suited to dissonant rhythm!)'2o

,'9 Letter from Ruth Crawford to Charles Seeger, 26 October 1930. SeegerEstate. Also quoted in Gaume, RuthCrawfordSeeger,I6o.120 Letter from Charles Seeger to Ruth Crawford, 7 October 1930. Seeger Estate.



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252 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Example i oCrawford,Chant,"To an Angel,"mm. 1-6, short score. The Estateof RuthCrawfordSeeger.Used by permission.

=60"T I

sempre pp, dolce, legatissimoHum throughout (with complete monotony of tempo and "white" tone throughout)

By the time she received this letter, Crawford had alreadyabandoned the idea of using the BhagavadGita. Even though by herown admission she "knew nothing about the chanting"'"' Seeger'sexuberant imagery was enough to inspire her. When she laterexplained the piece to Gerald Reynolds as having its source in"chanting done in far-eastern monasteries," she also appropriatedSeeger's image of the "complex veil of sound" and his description ofthe unintentional heterophony.'2It was one thing to evoke "Eastern sound" in words and quiteanother to realize it in Western music. Crawford experimented withseveral techniques that have their roots in her earlier spiritualaesthetics. The most important was the use of chromatic aggregates,for this piece takes that trait to its logical conclusion. Chromaticsegments are the sound ideal of the work and the presentationof thetotal chromatic its climax. As she described it to Reynolds, "the halfsteps" were "to effect a kind of new composite mass-pitch."'23Bold in conception, rathersimple in design, the Chant unfolds thetotal chromatic through an additive process. The first section, mea-sures i- o, presents an initial hexachord, A-Bb-C-Db-D-Eb, as achoral mantra on "OM," articulatedin three syllables (OR-U-M) inthe proportionsof 2:3:4 as suggested by Seeger.'24 The opening of thepiece was to be almost inaudible, "sotto voce and pppp," as still asIves's "Druids"in TheUnanswered uestion.From the shadows of themantra the Chant emerges through Crawford's invented prayer

"' Letter from Ruth Crawford to Charles Seeger, 26 October, 1930. SeegerEstate.122 In e

Documents

Tick, Ruth Crawford's Spiritual Concept (JAMS 44-2, 1991)