This is sharply interrupted by a sudden return of the insect music from at first, the second threnody-bearing the title of the work-inducing the players to wild shouts and rapid descending glissandi, culminating in a massive tam-tam strike. Part II begins with “Pavana Lachrymæ”, a bizarre skeletal rendition of tudor melancholy, the players bowing their strings above their fingers, an extreme kind of sul tasto that saps all life and warmth from the timbre. The second and third parts have four sections each. Things then liven up, first with rude tritone interjections and scraping bows in “Devil Music”, tam-tam strikes creating an air of religiosity or ceremony, and then in a “Danse Macabre”, the first time a pulse has been heard, underpinning an unsettling dance accompanied by maracas and tunes whistled by the players. This is followed by a pair of highly contrasting, delicate movements, “Sounds of Bones and Flutes” and “Lost Bells”, the quartet tapping uncannily while a strange melody emerges and then falls into distant fragments. Part I falls into five sections, opening with “THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects”, a rapid, dissonant-strewn (almost unison) episode with startling glissando ‘calls’.
Alongside extended techniques-many of which are commonplace today but were novel at the time-Crumb employs the most imaginative methods to obtain specific timbral colours and effects. Throughout, the quartet is amplified, and are required to do very much more than merely play their string instruments. Black Angels comprises 13 short sections, grouped into three parts that parallel the Christian notions of falling from grace ( Departure), concomitant spiritual poverty ( Absence) and subsequent redemption ( Return).
The bedrock is structured with Crumb’s trademark fastidiousness and rigour, in which the numbers 7 and 13 are fundamental. Completed in 1970, Crumb subtitled the work “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land”, and the tone throughout is a profoundly troubled one Crumb hints at an explanation in an inscription in the score-”in tempore belli” (“in time of war”)-referencing the Vietnam War, and it’s that subject matter, together with allusions to Penderecki’s seminal Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima that form the core of the work. To mark the occasion, here’s a recording of a performance of one of his most well-known and loved pieces, the great and formidable string quartet Black Angels, which received its first performance 41 years ago yesterday (hmm, 82 and 41 Crumb would no doubt approve of the numeric connection).
Today is the 82nd birthday of one of my favourite composers, George Crumb.
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