Black Angels (Crumb)
Encyclopedia
Black Angels subtitled "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land" is an avant-garde
work composed by George Crumb
for "electric string quartet
." It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)" as written on the score. Crumb is very interested in numerology
and numerically structured the piece around 13 and 7.
, especially with regard to electronic techniques
. George Crumb was commissioned by the Stanley Quartet (then in residence at his alma mater
the University of Michigan
) to create just such an experimental piece. Sure that he wanted to avoid writing a typical piece for string quartet
, Crumb looked to experimental piano music
from the early 60s for inspiration, and decided to explore the contemporary world's religious strife in his composition. "Black Angels" reflects these haunting and mystical undertones; Crumb meant for the violin to embody the devil's music, and cast the cello as "the voice of God."
The image of Black Angels is an archetypical convention used by artists to represent an angel banished from Heaven
. The "Dark Land" refers to Hell
, with consistent references to Diablo
, via Diabolus in Musica
, the Trillo del diavolo ("Devil's Trill", from Giuseppe Tartini
), and the Dies Irae
(quoted in section 4 Devil-music, and as a Duo Alternativo in section 5 Danse Macabre
). Crumb also makes references to other tonal works that incorporate death, such as Schubert's
Death and the Maiden
(quoted in section 6 Pavana Lachrymae and section 13 Threnody III).
"Black Angels" was not originally intended to refer to wartime, and Crumb only associated his work with Vietnam
towards the end of its composition. "I came to recognize that there was something of the feeling of that strange time. That's when I called it music in tempore belli, in time of war," he said in an interview with Philadelphia City Paper
. After making the connection between his piece and war, Crumb also connected it to another contemporary wartime piece, Penderecki's
"Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
." Both pieces open with high pitched extended technique on violin, and Black Angels features three important threnodies
which divide it.
Piano Sonata No. 26, Les Adieux.
Each of these parts is built around the primes
7 and 13 in some way. This might be reflected in the length of the section, its phrases, its note values, patterns of motif
s, or pitch
(in accordance with set theory
). Crumb himself forgets how the numbers play in to every section, and warns not to read too much into their significance, as he "got carried away with the Friday the 13th
thing." He views the numerology as more of a "technical, structural" experiment, and has played down the numbers' significance increasingly in the years since 1970.
above the fingers and tapping the strings with thimbles. At certain points in the music, the players are even required to make sounds with their mouths and to speak.
Each of the string players is also assigned a set of instruments to play throughout the piece. Some of the equipment requires specific preparation, such as the crystal glasses, which are tuned with different amounts of water.
Violin 1
Violin 2
Viola
Cello
It was the first composition Kronos performed.
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
work composed by George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
for "electric string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
." It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)" as written on the score. Crumb is very interested in numerology
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...
and numerically structured the piece around 13 and 7.
Background
In the 1950s and 60s, composers began a new push in experimental musicExperimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, especially with regard to electronic techniques
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. George Crumb was commissioned by the Stanley Quartet (then in residence at his alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
) to create just such an experimental piece. Sure that he wanted to avoid writing a typical piece for string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
, Crumb looked to experimental piano music
Piano Music
Piano Music is a suite of four short pieces composed by Alexina Louie in 1982 for the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects. The four pieces are The Enchanted Bells, Changes, Distant Memories, and Once upon a time....
from the early 60s for inspiration, and decided to explore the contemporary world's religious strife in his composition. "Black Angels" reflects these haunting and mystical undertones; Crumb meant for the violin to embody the devil's music, and cast the cello as "the voice of God."
The image of Black Angels is an archetypical convention used by artists to represent an angel banished from Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
. The "Dark Land" refers to Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, with consistent references to Diablo
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
, via Diabolus in Musica
Tritone
In classical music from Western culture, the tritone |tone]]) is traditionally defined as a musical interval composed of three whole tones. In a chromatic scale, each whole tone can be further divided into two semitones...
, the Trillo del diavolo ("Devil's Trill", from Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...
), and the Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
(quoted in section 4 Devil-music, and as a Duo Alternativo in section 5 Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre
Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's...
). Crumb also makes references to other tonal works that incorporate death, such as Schubert's
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
Death and the Maiden
Death and the Maiden Quartet (Schubert)
The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, known as Death and the Maiden, by Franz Schubert, is one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. Composed in 1824, after the composer suffered through a serious illness and realized that he was dying, it is Schubert's testament to death...
(quoted in section 6 Pavana Lachrymae and section 13 Threnody III).
"Black Angels" was not originally intended to refer to wartime, and Crumb only associated his work with Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
towards the end of its composition. "I came to recognize that there was something of the feeling of that strange time. That's when I called it music in tempore belli, in time of war," he said in an interview with Philadelphia City Paper
Philadelphia City Paper
Philadelphia City Paper is a free alternative news weekly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in November 1981 as a spin-off of the now defunct WXPN Express newsletter. New issues are released every Thursday....
. After making the connection between his piece and war, Crumb also connected it to another contemporary wartime piece, Penderecki's
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
"Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima is a musical composition for 52 string instruments, composed in 1960 by Krzysztof Penderecki , which took third prize at the Grzegorz Fitelberg Composers' Competition in Katowice in 1960...
." Both pieces open with high pitched extended technique on violin, and Black Angels features three important threnodies
Threnody
A threnody is a song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. The term originates from the Greek word threnoidia, from threnos + oide ; ultimately, from the Proto-Indo-European root wed- that is also the precursor of such words as "ode", "tragedy", "comedy",...
which divide it.
Construction and numerology
The first part, Departure, begins by establishing the dark mood of Black Angels and introducing the primary death theme. In the second part, Absence, the fallen angel's themes are heard. Finally in part three, Return, God prevails over evil, as presented in section 10 God-music. The titles of these three sections derive from the titles of the three movements of Beethoven'sLudwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
Piano Sonata No. 26, Les Adieux.
Each of these parts is built around the primes
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
7 and 13 in some way. This might be reflected in the length of the section, its phrases, its note values, patterns of motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
s, or pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
(in accordance with set theory
Set theory (music)
Musical set theory provides concepts for categorizing musical objects and describing their relationships. Many of the notions were first elaborated by Howard Hanson in connection with tonal music, and then mostly developed in connection with atonal music by theorists such as Allen Forte , drawing...
). Crumb himself forgets how the numbers play in to every section, and warns not to read too much into their significance, as he "got carried away with the Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year...
thing." He views the numerology as more of a "technical, structural" experiment, and has played down the numbers' significance increasingly in the years since 1970.
| Part | Title | Numerology |
|---|---|---|
| I. Departure | 1. THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects | 13 times 7 and 7 times 13 |
| 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes | 7 in 13 | |
| 3. Lost Bells | 13 over 7 | |
| 4. Devil-music | 7 and 13 | |
| 5. Danse Macabre Danse Macabre Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's... |
13 times 7 | |
| II. Absence | 6. Pavana Lachrymae | 13 under 13 |
| 7. THRENODY II: BLACK ANGELS! | 7 times 7 and 13 times 13 | |
| 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura | 13 over 13 | |
| 9. Lost Bells (Echo) | 7 times 13 | |
| III. Return | 10. God-music | 13 and 7 |
| 11. Ancient Voices | 7 over 13 | |
| 12. Ancient Voices (echo) | 13 in 7 | |
| 13. THRENODY III: Night of the Electric Insects | 7 times 13 and 13 times 7 |
Instrumentation
Black Angels is primarily written (in unusual and very detailed notation) for (in Crumb's words) "electric string quartet." Though generally played by amplified acoustic instruments, the work is occasionally performed on specially constructed electronic string instruments. The music uses the extremes of the instruments' registers as well as extended techniques such as bowing on the fingerboardFingerboard
The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run...
above the fingers and tapping the strings with thimbles. At certain points in the music, the players are even required to make sounds with their mouths and to speak.
Each of the string players is also assigned a set of instruments to play throughout the piece. Some of the equipment requires specific preparation, such as the crystal glasses, which are tuned with different amounts of water.
Violin 1
- maraca
- 7 crystal glasses
- 6" glass rod
- 2 metal thimbleThimbleA thimble is a small hard pitted cup worn for protection on the finger that pushes the needle in sewing.The earliest known thimble was Roman and was found at Pompeii. Made of bronze, its creation has been dated to the 1st century AD...
s - metal pick (paper clip)
Violin 2
- 15" suspended tam-tam and mallet
- contrabassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
bow (for use on tam-tam) - 7 crystal glasses
- 6" glass rod
- 2 metal thimbles
- metal pick (paper clip)
Viola
- 6 crystal glasses
- 6" glass rod
- 2 metal thimbles
- metal pick
Cello
- maraca
- 24" suspended tam-tam, soft and hard mallets
- contrabass bow
Stage positioning
Crumb's score includes a diagram that places the four musicians in a box-like formation. Electric Violin II and Electric Cello are located near upstage right and upstage left, respectively, with their tam-tams between them. Electric Violin I and Electric Viola are near downstage right and downstage left, respectively, but are slightly farther apart than the other two musicians in order to allow full sight of the quartet. Violin I, Violin II and Viola have a set of crystal glasses downstage of them, while Violin I and Cello have maracas upstage of them. Each of the four musicians has a speaker next to him or her.Cultural influences
- Kronos QuartetKronos QuartetKronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...
, which specializes in new music, was originally formed when violinist David Harrington heard "Black Angels" over the radio. He thought Crumb's piece was "something wild, something scary" and "absolutely the right music to play."
It was the first composition Kronos performed.
- "Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects" is featured on the soundtrackSoundtrackA soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
of The ExorcistThe Exorcist (film)The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...
.
- "III. Return - God-music" is heard in the television series Cosmos: A Personal VoyageCosmos: A Personal VoyageCosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as presenter. It was executive-produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Gregory Andorfer, and directed by the producers, David...
on the third episode of the series titled "The Harmony of the Worlds".