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Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music.

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Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music. Edited by Ray Allen and Ellie M. Hisama. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007. [x, 308 p. ISBN-10: 15804612; ISBN-13: 9781580462129. $75.] Bibliographical references, music examples, discography, index.

Ruth Crawford Seeger's Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-Century American Music is a well-written, interdisciplinary collection of essays by leading scholars on Crawford Seeger from musicology, music theory, music education, folklore, history, American studies, and women's studies. The book explores the relationship between Crawford's high modernist compositions and her work in traditional American folk music, providing a rich, nuanced understanding of Crawford's life and music, and twentieth-century American musical life and aesthetics. The level of scholarship is impeccable with solid writing throughout, a foreword by American music scholar Carol Oja, notes for each chapter, useful music examples in over half of the chapters, a selected discography, brief biographies of contributors, and index. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, this collection will appeal to a wide array of readers.

The book's twelve chapters are organized into two parts: the first six address primarily Crawford's ultramodern music and the last six explore the legacy of her work in folk music. However, there are strong relationships drawn between both of these aspects of her career throughout both sections. This being the case, some redundancy might be expected, but there is actually quite little, and when similar material is written about, it is always with a fresh approach.

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