Her early work (Chicago, 1924-9) bears the stamp of Skriabin: dissonance, post-tonal harmonies and irregular metres and rhythms are its most significant features (e.g. the Preludes for piano, 1924-1925 and 1927-1928). However, Crawford’s reputation as an innovative and experimental composer rests mainly on her New York compositions (1930-33), such as the outstanding String Quartet ‘1931’, in which serial operations are developed to control structure and parameters other than pitch. In this way, Ruth Crawford Seeger was perhaps one of the pioneers of serialist music.