‘Voices’ of Crumb Still Being Heard

“Time and its erosion can be cruel and merciless,” says composer George Crumb. “But I don’t want to sound too melancholy. The American public is always interested in newer things, so it’s only natural that younger composers get their time on stage.”

Crumb, now 67, speaks softly, with no apparent longing for his own days as a “young composer.” Back then, in the 1960s and ‘70s, his distinctive sonorities and sense of theatrics made his name virtually synonymous with the musical avant-garde. In 1968, his “Echoes of Time and the River” won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1970, he composed his two most famous works--”Black Angels,” an amplified Vietnam War lament for string quartet (later championed by the Kronos Quartet), and “Ancient Voices of Children,” a setting of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca for soprano, boy soprano and such instruments as toy piano, tubular bells, musical saw and Tibetan prayer stones. On Saturday, soprano Dawn Upshaw--with a full complement of other players--will perform “Ancient Voices” as the centerpiece of her recital at Veterans Wadsworth Theatre.

After 1972, Crumb’s output slowed to a trickle. There were sporadic new works--his most recent, “Quest,” was written in 1991 (revised in 1994) for guitarist David Starobin and Speculum Musicae and recorded last year on Bridge Records--but for the most part, his reputation still rests on pieces composed during that earlier era.

According to Crumb, his “disappearance” was mostly a matter of balancing creativity with the rest of his career. The composer still teaches a full course load at the University of Pennsylvania, where he first settled in 1965, and although juggling teaching and writing was not so difficult in the ‘60s, it has taken its toll over the years.

“It’s not really a matter of time,” he says by phone from his home in Media, Penn., “it’s a matter of energy. When you’re young, you can do anything.”

Besides, he says, composing has always been a young person’s game. “If I were Mozart I’d’ve been dead for 45 years by now,” Crumb points out. “Composers like Verdi, who wrote best later in life, are in the minority. Twentieth century composers in particular are known for doing their best work in their youth. Take Sibelius, or Stravinsky. There were some nice later pieces, like the ‘Symphony of Psalms,’ but nothing ever equaled ‘The Rite of Spring.’ ”

Traveling, lectures and master classes have also filled Crumb’s schedule. Explaining his complex annotation and instrumentation for new audiences has become a cottage industry--especially in Europe, where he says his works are performed most frequently. Last season alone saw trips to festivals in London, Dijon, Berlin and Hanover, as well as Israel and South Africa.

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In the United States, however, Crumb’s music arguably is more studied than performed these days. “Ancient Voices’ ” nontraditional ensemble and instrumentation, for example, is more easily assembled in a conservatory than in a professional concert setting. The works themselves exist in a programming limbo--no longer innovative, but not quite accepted repertory. As Upshaw puts it: “I don’t mean to imply that they’re dated, but you can tell today just where they fall in music history.”

Upshaw first tuned into the sonorities of “Ancient Voices” through the Nonesuch recording featuring the late mezzo-soprano (and Upshaw’s future teacher) Jan DeGaetani. “What first impressed me was how individual and expressive the music is,” she says. “Other music might sound George Crumbish, but there’s really nothing you can compare his music to.”

Today, Upshaw finds herself drawn deeper into the spiritual side of the work. Elements of ritual are deeply embedded in the piece (‘Just seeing someone playing the saw is important,” she says), and Crumb himself had left suggestions in the performance notes for a solo dancer. Upshaw’s performance this week will be staged, with movement for her and soprano Erik Carlson, of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, by choreographer Bill T. Jones.

Upshaw says she decided to tackle the work only after years of careful consideration. “I have been so much in awe of it--and Jan’s performance--that for years I just wasn’t going to touch it,” Upshaw says. “There aren’t very many things I feel that way about.”

DeGaetani’s performance also left its mark on the composer.

“When Jan died, that reduced a certain impetus for me to write vocal music,” he admits. Thirty years ago, DeGaetani was on the front lines with the composer, establishing an oral tradition for nuances not readily notated and sounds not usually produced. Although Crumb has not yet heard Upshaw’s interpretation of “Ancient Voices” (he plans to attend her performance on April 26 at Carnegie Hall), he was impressed with her recording of another of his works, “Four Moons.”

“My music allows a latitude to the performers in a way that, say, a Chopin nocturne would not,” Crumb says, adding that DeGaetani would be proud of her student. “Today, this music is seeing its third generation. Students of Jan’s students are singing it. You can hear any number of nuances. That’s what keeps the music alive.”

Crumb’s music may face a resurrection on the creative front as well. Retirement from the university looms at the end of this semester, and the composer hopes to set pen to paper again soon, starting with his unfinished fragments from the past few years.

“Stravinsky was asked to analyze ‘The Firebird’ some 50 years later and he said he had no idea what was in his mind when he wrote it,” Crumb says. “With me it’s more a matter of craft. I can look at a sketch and have a pretty good idea what I was thinking.”

* Dawn Upshaw sings “Ancient Voices of Children,” Saturday, 8 p.m., Veterans Wadsworth Theatre, Veterans Administration grounds, Brentwood. $9-$33. (310) 825-2101.