An almost silent "Ancient Voices (Echo)" leads into more pizzicato sounds and a reprise of the insect music in "Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects. "Ancient Voices" consists mainly of a series of little pizzicato (plucked string) sounds. The final movement, Return, opens with "God-music," in which an ethereal glass harmonica effect from the water-tuned goblets combines with a wandering, nearly static melodic line. Yelling and further insect sounds are heard in "Threnody II: Black Angels!" Viols are again imitated in "Sarabanda da la Muerte Oscura," and the movement closes with "Lost Bells (Echo)." The opening section of the second movement, Absence, is titled "Pavana Lachrymae" Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet is quoted here in an evocation of ancient viol music. Crumbs largest contribution of Classical Music is the amount of innovative techniques and notations he used in his music, which give the music a very mystical and other worldly feel. The movement ends with whispered counting from the musicians. The first movement, Departure, begins abruptly and frighteningly with "Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects," and moves into "Sounds of Bones and Flutes" and the mysterious "Lost Bells." Crashes of the tam-tam punctuate the wild "Devil-music," and the last section is a submerged-sounding evocation of Camille Saint-Saƫns' Danse macabre. The three stages of this voyage are Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation), and Return (redemption)." Crumb wrote of the work: "Black Angels was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world. The four players also whisper, chant, shout, and employ percussion instruments - maracas, tam-tams, and water-tuned crystal goblets. The quartet of stringed instruments is amplified "to the threshold of pain," and the musicians are called upon to play their instruments in many unusual ways, including trilling on the strings with thimble-capped fingers. The Stanley Quartet gave Black Angels its premiere on October 23, 1970, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Events of the time provided inspiration for Black Angels, subtitled "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land." The score of this eerie, sometimes downright scary work (completed, by no means coincidentally given Crumb's fascination with numbers, on a Friday the 13th, in March 1970) is inscribed "in tempore belli" (in time of war). The score of this eerie, sometimes downright scary work (completed, by no means coincidentally given Crumbs fascination with numbers, on a Friday the 13th, in March 1970) is inscribed 'in tempore belli' (in time of war). BLACK ANGELS (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land) for Electric String Quartet (in tempore belli, 1970) There were terrifying things in the air George Crumb, on the Vietnam War years I love some music the first time I hear it but then it starts to sour by the third time. Work for electric string quartet (and crystal glasses and tam-tam gongs). "There were terrifying things in the air," said George Crumb of the Vietnam War years. Crumb, George - Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land) (Images I).
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