Symphony of Destruction

Composer George Crumb goes to war with "Black Angels."

by Peter Burwasser | Photo by Michael T. Regan

1970 was a tough year for America. Memories of the recent assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, as well as the immolations of American black inner-city neighborhoods, hovered darkly, acridly, in the air. It was, above all else, the ongoing nightmare of Vietnam that engulfed the national consciousness, casting a huge shadow over virtually all human intercourse. It was into this lurid zeitgeist that George Crumb’s amplified string quartet "Black Angels" was premiered. The music crystallized the composer’s uncanny ability to project ferocity and the beatific in the same voice. New music in 1970 was still dominated by emotionally constricted serialism, and Crumb’s direct sensuality had an explosive effect. "Black Angels" was an instant classic, and has since been recorded 10 times, a remarkable, perhaps unprecedented statistic for contemporary art music.

By that time, George Crumb was already an established new music innovator, and well into his tenure as an influential teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, where he joined the faculty in 1965. The West Virginia native had made the Philadelphia area his home base, and he still lives in Media. In 1968, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for orchestra and theatrical effects, among many other honors he has been accorded in the course of his career. The Pulitzer was for "Echoes of Time and the River," a work that included many of the unique techniques that Crumb has since become famous for.

Indeed, a number of these Crumb "signatures" that had been used in previous works come together in "Black Angels," including unconventional use of instruments, spoken or vocalized contributions from the players, and allusions or quotes from earlier music. "In "Echoes of Autumn,' written in 1966, I believe, the performers have to speak some words of [Federico Garc’a] Lorca," Crumb says. "Soon after, I wrote "Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death,' which was mostly for amplified instruments. This led me into [new] ideas of amplification and instrumentalists vocalizing certain things."

"The original stimulus" for "Black Angels," Crumb says, "was a commission from the Stanley Quartet, then in residence at the University of Michigan. I was unsure what direction to take, but I didn't see myself writing a typical quartet. I decided right away to rethink the concept of what a string quartet really is. I was already into exploring sound in a big way, going back to my piano music from the early '60s."

Despite the sensational effect of his work, when Crumb speaks of his own music, it is with a curious sense of detachment, as if he is himself still discovering connections and meaning. When he 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 some 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."

But even if the composer did not have the war explicitly in mind, there was inherent subject matter that naturally lent itself to such an interpretation. "Good versus evil was part of my thinking. The devil's music is for the violin. I use Tartini's "Devil's Trill.' The cello is the voice of God." Spirituality is also conjured with a quote from the slow movement of the "Death and the Maiden" string quartet of Schubert, but the musical homage goes further back as well. "There is something very medieval for me in some of the music. It sounds like quotes from medieval music [in parts] but is actually original."

There is at least one important contemporary reference as well. Penderecki's 1960 "Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima" opens with a sort of hysteria for high strings that Crumb goes one better in the startlingly slashing violence of the three threnody sections in "Black Angels," including the very opening of the piece. "I did know the Penderecki. There was a kind of anguish there, but it is kind of monolithic. I tried to cover a lot more moods."

A much-discussed extra-musical element in "Black Angels" is the use of numerology, a concept which finds its way into many of Crumb's pieces. He warns against reading too much into this. "Yes, this business of 7s and 13s came into the music. I don't remember what they even mean. It was more technical, structural. I got carried away with the Friday the 13th thing. I think it is important in all music [not to reveal too much]. Beethoven doesn't give us all of what's in his mind. There are references to Shakespeare in his letters, but not in the score. Mahler's Third originally had descriptive titles for all of the movements, but he dropped them. Even more abstract music is probably connected with other ideas -- poetry, landscapes, and other things. [It's better to] let the listener make the connections."

It is not usually apparent to the listener, but Crumb is famous for his beautifully handwritten scores, which are never typeset, but rather reproduced from the original for the performers. "Black Angels" does not employ the composer's remarkable circular staves, but "there is a certain graphic fantasy. In the central movement, which is called Black Angels, the four staves sometimes converge and then split apart again." Does this give the performer any specific direction? "In a way, it may add a little something to the performers' concepts. I am graphically demonstrating the harmonizing."

Even if the the audience is deprived of the visual aesthetics of the written music, "Black Angels," like almost all of Crumb's music, has a potent dramatic effect in live performance. There is, in addition to the four string instruments, a small percussion battery and a glass harmonica, which is bowed rather than rubbed with the fingers. "The Kronos [String Quartet] does a very theatrical version, with backlighting and things suspended from ropes. I was prepared not to like it, but it was actually pretty effective."

In our own time, a number of colleagues and friends have told the composer that "Black Angels" may be taking on a freshly sinister resonance, which Crumb himself acknowledges, referring to "this business with Iraq." He says, "The darkest interpretation is that we are involved in a never-ending conflict. This is a rather frightening time again." And "Black Angels," which concludes with thematic material that offers no resolution of the battle between good and evil, still sounds an ominous anthem.