Diaphonic Suite

Diaphonic Suite (#1) for Solo Flute (or Oboe) by Ruth Crawford Seeger
Publisher: Theodore Presser Co.
Instrumentation: Flute

Duration: 5:00

I. Scherzando

II. Andante

III. Allegro

IV. Moderato Ritmico

American female composer Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) was a major artist in the American modernist movement; and as an editor, arranger, and music educator in the 1940s, she was a pioneering advocate of American traditional music.  An “ultra-modernist” composer in the 1920s musical avant-garde (a la Cowell, Ruggles, and Varese) style, Seeger has been referred to as  “Expressionist” and “Constructivist,” suggesting the combination of intensely emotional content within original schematic forms that is characteristic of her best work. Her small body of works, mostly composed between 1924 and 1936, consist of about fifteen works, including four Diaphonic Suites for instrumental solos or duos.

Diaphonic Suite originally appeared in the Boletin Latin-Americano de Musica, Vol.1, Supplemento Musical, Montevideo; it was later published as part of New Music – a  quarterly journal publishing modern compositions.