18 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2019
    1. “I believe I’m going to work again — more,” she wrote. “If I live to be 99 as my grandfather did, that gives me 48 more years.”

      What caused her to want to return to composing music?

    2. Crawford attempted to reconcile her folk present and her dissonant past with a second quartet, but no sketches for it survive.

      Why was Crawford unable to write pieces that she was passionate about? Was she writing for herself or purely for monetary gain?

    3. But the children, who called her “Dio,” had little knowledge of their mother’s former life as a beacon of American ultramodernism

      How is this possible? Did Crawford try to separate her personal and professional lives?

    4. the couple became closely acquainted with the father-and-son folklorists John and Alan Lomax

      Why did they work together? Did they have similar political or artistic beliefs?

    5. Crawford was less vocal politically, but again put into practice her husband’s theories in the militant songs “Sacco, Vanzetti” and “Chinaman, Laundryman,”

      Did Crawford have the same political views as her husband? What was her motive behind writing these pieces?

    6. She acutely felt the pull between family and music, or what she once described in a letter as her “‘career vs. love and children’ battle.”

      How was Crawford able to balance both the duties of a wife and that of a professional composer?

    7. Each movement is a miniature essay, bringing to visceral musical life the ideas of dissonant counterpoint.

      Did Seeger write music like this as well?

    8. Crawford and Seeger, who was an unhappily married father of three when they met, fell in love

      How does their love story compare to that of Clara and Robert Schumann?

    9. She became indispensable to his work

      Did she receive the credit that she deserved in helping him with his compositions?

    10. She was soon heralded by ultramodernists like Cowell

      Was it common for women to amass a lot of fame and success during this time period?

    11. Crawford found her compositional voice just as modernism was emerging in American music.

      How did modernism impact her musical style?

    12. traveled to Chicago to study piano after showing musical promise

      Was her family supportive of this endeavor?

  2. Mar 2019
    1. “As a woman of that generation, she wrote this piece that’s so ahead of its time,” Austin Wulliman

      What's so special about this piece?

    2. And for the next two decades, before she died at 52 in 1953, she wrote only a handful of works.

      Is this because she was restricted by her duties as a wife?

    3. But shortly after its completion, Crawford returned to the United States and married Seeger.

      How did her marriage impact her work?

    4. “Fear of having nothing to say musically, fear of not being able to say it, fear, fear, a whole web of it.”

      Who was her support system during this time?

    5. “To work alone: I am convinced this is what I should do, to discover what I really want,” she decided.

      Since she did not study with any prominent teachers, was this a detriment to the quality of her work or did this allow her to create a unique and distinctive style of sound?

    6. the first woman to receive one

      Was Ruth nervous? Did she suffer from imposter syndrome like many women in underrepresented fields do today?