George Crumb's Black Angels
Black Angels draws on a multitude of sound sources including the human voice -- shouting, chanting, whistling, whispering - as well as gongs, maracas, crystal glasses and the traditional instruments of the string quartet. Amplification creates a surreal quality intended to throw the listener off-center.
According to an article about Black Angels by Peter Burwasser, first published in a March 2004 issue of the Philadelphia City Paper, "The music crystallized the composer's uncanny ability to project ferocity and the beatific in the same voice." Burwasser goes on:
When [Crumb] completed Black Angels, he inscribed it "finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)." As he acknowledges, the work "will probably be forever known as the 'Vietnam Quartet.' I didn't approach it that way. It was very late in the compositional process that I became aware of associations with that period. Some have suggested that even several of the titles refer to the geography of Vietnam, such as 'Night of the Electric Insects.'" Black Angels, a 20-minute work in 13 sections, took Crumb almost a year to complete. "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."
Click here for more information on the composer.
Click here for a YouTube interview with George Crumb.
