''Ancient Voices of Children'' is a musical composition written in 1970 by the American composer

George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...

. The work was given the subtitle "A Cycle of Songs on Texts by

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

." It is scored for

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

boy soprano A boy soprano (British and especially North American English) or boy treble (only British English) is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range, a range that is often still called the treble voice range (in North America ...

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

, amplified piano (and

toy piano The toy piano, also known as the ''kinderklavier'' (child's keyboard), is a small piano-like musical instrument. Most modern toy pianos use round metal rods, as opposed to strings in a regular piano, to produce sound. The U.S. Library of Congress ...

), and percussion (three players). It was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. The piece premiered 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 library is ...

in Washington, D.C., on October 31, 1970, as part of the Coolidge Foundation's 14th Festival of Chamber Music. The first performers were the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, which featured

Gilbert Kalish Gilbert Kalish (born July 2, 1935) is an American pianist. He was born in New York and studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabelle Vengerova. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a pioneering new music gr ...

(piano),

Jan DeGaetani Jan (Janice) DeGaetani (July 10, 1933 – September 15, 1989) was an American mezzo-soprano known for her performances of contemporary classical vocal compositions. DeGaetani was born in Massillon, Ohio. Educated at The Juilliard School with ...

(mezzo-soprano), and Michael Dash (boy soprano). The debut recording, produced by

Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly called Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Non ...

in 1971, features the same performers as the premiere performance. This release sold more than 70,000 units; and has become one of the best selling recordings in 20th century Classical Music.

Form and compositional style

''Ancient Voices of Children'' is composed of five movements of which all but two are setting of fragments of longer poems by García Lorca. Two purely instrumental dance-interludes – "Dances of the Ancient Earth" and "Ghost Dance" – appear between vocal movements. :# El niño busca su voz (The Little Boy was Looking for his Voice) :#: Dances of the Ancient Earth :# Me he perdido muchas veces por el mar (I have lost myself in the sea many times) :# ¿De dónde vienes, amor, mi niño? (Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle) :# Todas las tardes en Granada, todas las tardes se muere un niño (Each Afternoon in Granada, a Child Dies Each Afternoon) :#: Ghost Dance :# Se ha llenado de luces mi corazón de seda (My silk heart has been filled with lights) Highly virtuosic in style, ''Ancient Voices of Children'' is famous for its bizarre and often eerie vocal effects. Perhaps the most original of these is produced by the

singing a kind of fantastic

vocalise A vocal warm-up is a series of exercises meant to prepare the voice for singing, acting, or other use. There is very little scientific data about the benefits of vocal warm-ups. Relatively few studies have researched the effects of thesexercis ...

(based on purely

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

sounds) into an amplified piano. The singer's voice echoes as the piano strings

reverberate Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...

sympathetically with the singer. In the last movement, a boy soprano joins the soprano. He briefly sings from off stage before coming on stage for the final vocalise. As with many of Crumb's compositions, ''Ancient Voices of Children'' includes a large number of experimental sounds and instruments. This includes prayer stones, Japanese temple bells, a

musical saw A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is a hand saw used as a musical instrument. Capable of continuous glissando (portamento), the sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin. The musical saw is classified as a plaque f ...

, and a

. All the performers are also asked to speak,

whisper Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains the ...

, or yell at times. Of his inspiration for ''Ancient Voices of Children'' Crumb has provided the following insights:

"It is sometimes of interest to a composer to recall the original impulse – the 'creative germ' – of a compositional project. In the case of Ancient Voices I felt this impulse to be the climactic final words of the last song: '... and I will go very far ... to ask Christ The Lord to give me back my ancient soul of a child.'"

References

External links

Official home page
{{Authority control 1970 compositions Compositions by George Crumb Compositions that use extended techniques Music commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge