Black angels crumb stanley2/14/2023 ![]() George Crumb has cryptically related the piece to fallen angels, mortality, and the Vietnam War. ![]() We are left uncertain how to interpret the composition that results. There, they must recite streams of syllables and bash tam-tams. Here, they are called to play crystal glasses. The musicians, too, are pushed to their limits at times, they seem to be attacking or ignoring their instruments. The viola, cello, and pair of violins are amplified and subjected to electronic distortion, their timbre radically transformed. With Black Angels, the string quartet, a form often associated with cool detachment, gives way to a visceral experience. As we fail to impose a sense of reason upon the sequence of events in which it is lodged, it glimmers just out of reach, revelling in our inability to order this chaos. A macabre tango strikes up, as if played on Death’s own fiddle. Shouts, moans, and all manner of strange, unclassifiable sounds ricochet about in the void. Percussive, plucked string patterns race through the darkness.
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