Black Angels - George Crumb
Black Angels
composed by George Crumb
Violin - Sara Cubarsi, Violeta Cubarsi
Viola - Madeline Falcone
Cello Derek Stein
Sound Projection - David Aguila
Program Notes
Thirteen Images From the Dark Land
I. Departure
1. Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects
2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes
3. Lost Bells
4. Devil-music
5. Danse Macabre
II. Absence
6. Pavana Lachrymae
7. Threnody II: Black Angels!
8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura
9. Lost Bells (Echo)
III. Return
10. God-music
11. Ancient Voices
12. Ancient Voices (Echo)
13. Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects
Black Angels was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world. The work
portrays a voyage of the soul. The three stages of this voyage are Departure (fall from grace),
Absence (spiritual annihilation) and Return (redemption).”
“The numerological symbolism of Black Angels, while perhaps not immediately perceptible to
the ear, is nonetheless quite faithfully reflected in the musical structure. These ‘magical’
relationships are variously expressed: e.g., in terms of length, groupings of single tones,
durations, patterns of repetition, etc. ... There are several allusions to tonal music: a quotation
from Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet; an original Sarabanda; the sustained B-major
tonality of God-Music; and several references to the Latin sequence Dies Irae (Day of Wrath).
The work abounds in conventional musical symbolisms such as the Diabolus in Musica (the
interval of the tritone) and the Trillo Di Diavolo (the Devil’s Trill, after Tartini).
-George Crumb-