In 1976, “music filmmaker” Robert Mugge created his first music-related film. Titled “George Crumb: Voice of the Whale,” it was a strikingly original, 54-minute portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning and Grammy-winning composer George Crumb.
To celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary, MVD Visual is making available a newly remastered version on DVD and via digital streaming.
Originally funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, “George Crumb: Voice Of The Whale” makes innovative use of color and a dialectical structure to reveal Crumb’s life (green-tinted-footage), his work (blue-tinted footage), and connections between the two (culminating in full-color footage). Included in the work are a complete performance of Crumb’s 1971 composition “Vox Balaenae for Three Masked Players”; samples of the rural, West Virginia gospel music that influenced him; demonstrations by Crumb of exotic instruments and unusual effects that figure in his compositions; and scenes from his home and university teaching environments. At his home in Media, Pennsylvania, Crumb discusses his compositional techniques with fellow composer Richard Wernick, and his musician wife Elizabeth discusses their life together; at the university, Wernick’s Penn Contemporary Players (Carole Morgan, Lambert Orkis, and Barbara Haffner) perform “Vox Balaenae.”
Words frequently used to describe George Crumb’s work are “poetic, atmospheric, mysterious, evocative.” He himself has said, “I feel intuitively that music must have been the first cell from which language, science, and religion originated.”
First broadcast over PBS on June 6th, 1978, “George Crumb: Voice Of The Whale” has now been newly transferred to HD from original 16mm film and audio masters and lovingly restored by its director for MVD’s forthcoming release. An early critique in Landers Film Reviews called it “A revealing and enlightening film biography of an innovative and original musical talent.”
Robert Mugge has been dubbed everything from “The king of the American music documentary” (LA Weekly) to “The best music filmmaker on the planet” (Liberation, Paris). According to Stephen Holden in the New York Times, “Films of the documentarian Robert Mugge [are] cultural reference books… They are archival records as well as entertainments.” “George Crumb: Voice Of The Whale” is the latest in a long series of releases, and rereleases, of films made throughout Mugge’s career.
Early in the career of composer George Crumb, New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote, “In recent years, George Crumb has been talked about, and praised, more than any other composer of the avant-garde.” In the decades since, such praise has increased exponentially, and his compositions have been performed and recorded around the world. Amazon.com alone offers 150 recordings featuring his work.
Today, Crumb is represented by Bridge Records Management, which also hosts The Official George Crumb Website at www.georgecrumb.net. The tag line for the site is, “George Crumb’s reputation as a composer of hauntingly beautiful scores has made him one of the most frequently performed composers in today’s world.” Featured on the site are lists of recordings and compositions, photos, videos, writings, and the following description:
“George Crumb (b. 1929) is one of the most frequently performed composers in today’s musical world. Crumb is the winner of Grammy and Pulitzer Prizes, and continues to compose new scores that enrich the lives of all who come in contact with his profoundly humanistic art. Crumb’s music often juxtaposes contrasting musical styles, ranging from music of the western art-music tradition, to hymns and folk music, to non-Western musics. Many of Crumb’s works include programmatic, symbolic, mystical, and theatrical elements, which are often reflected in his beautiful and meticulously notated scores.”
“A shy, yet warmly eloquent personality, Crumb retired from his teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania after more than 30 years of service. Honored by numerous institutions with honorary Doctorates, and the recipient of dozens of awards and prizes, Crumb makes his home in Pennsylvania, in the same house where he and his wife of more than 60 years raised their three children. George Crumb’s music is published by C.F. Peters and an ongoing series of “Complete Crumb” recordings, supervised by the composer, is being issued on Bridge Records.”
The DVD can be ordered now at the MVD Shop or on Amazon.
Available On DVD June 24th
The Climax of Robert Mugge's 1976 film GEORGE CRUMB: VOICE OF THE WHALE from Robert Mugge on Vimeo.
