Ruth Crawford Seeger was a pioneering figure of the American modernist movement. Her career can be divided into two distinct phases, separated by her studies with the composer and ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger, whom she married. Her earliest mature works, such as the Sonata for Violin and Piano, show a Scriabinesque post-Romantic sensibility. During her studies with Seeger, however, her music became more concentrated and controlled, as well as more daring and experimental. Her mastery reached its apotheosis with the Three Songs, a bold, original setting of poems by Carl Sandburg.