Quotation and Framing

Re-contextualization and Intertextuality as Newness in George Crumb'sBlack Angels

Bibliographic Data

ID3858376
AuthorsNils Holger Petersen (0000-0002-8568-6595, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume29
Issue3
Pages309-321
Publication date2010-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueContemporary Music Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0749-4467 • E-ISSN: 1477-2256
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07494467.2010.535365
OpenAlexW2024195023
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited5

George Crumb's Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land for Electric String Quartet (1970) are individually original, but also representative for compositional practices for the twentieth century. As in his other compositions, Crumb has integrated musical quotations and various musical styles, including a web of references that extend into other media in such a way that they form an indispensable part of the basic construction of the work: these components form part of its newness. In Black Angels the composer—among other well-known pieces of music—quotes the medieval `Dies irae' sequence and the second movement of Schubert's string quartet in D minor (D. 810). The musical and intermedial references are framed with striking modernistic sounds exploring instrumental possibilities far beyond the traditional, thus creating a framework of extreme contrasts. The paper will contextualize, analyze and interpret Black Angels—which the composer explicitly linked to the Vietnam War—in a broad context of music, intermediality, religious symbolism, and cultural memory, pointing to the cultural meaning of this technique of recontextualization as a break with, as well as a continuation of, modernity. Keywords: George Crumb Black Angels IntertextualityIntermedialityAnalysisString Quartet Notes [1] For a recent survey and terminological discussion of such phenomena in musical composition, see Bruhn (2000 Bruhn, S. 2000. Musical ekphrasis: Composers responding to poetry and painting, Hillsdale, NJ: Pendragon Press. [Google Scholar]). In a very direct way, Crumb has also written a musical response to Giotto's Frescoes for the Arena Chapel of Padua: A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 for piano (see Grace, 2005 Grace, M. D. 2005. "Crumb's A Little Suite for Christmas, A.d. 1979, Giotto's Frescoes for the Arena Chapel of Padua, and the Art of Empfindsamkeit". In George Crumb & the alchemy of sound, Edited by: Grace (General Ed.), M. D, Bruns, S and Ben-Amots, O. 133–155. Colorado Springs, CO: Colorado College Music Press. [Google Scholar]). [2] Adamenko discusses certain specific details from Black Angels as, for instance, its number symbolism (2007, pp. 194–200). [3] The 1970 edition gave the English translations quoted here. See also my discussion of Stockhausen's statement in Petersen (2004 Petersen, N. H. 2004. "Introduction: Transformations of Christian traditions and their representation in the arts, 1000–2000". In Signs of change: Transformations of Christian traditions and their representation in the arts, 1000–2000, Edited by: Petersen, N. H, Clüver, C and Bell, N. 1–25. Amsterdam: Rodopi. [Google Scholar], pp. 5–7). [4] See the discussion below, also referring to Crumb's own description. [5] For the notion of 'classical music', see Hamilton (2007 Hamilton, A. 2007. Aesthetics & music, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar], p. 4); for a discussion of canon, see Weber (1999 Weber, W. 1999. "The history of musical canon". In Rethinking music, Edited by: Cook, N and Everist, M. 336–355. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). [6] Adamenko's book contains as its Appendix 1: An Interview with George Crumb (2007, pp. 265–271). [7] For the connection to Bartók's 'night music', see Adamenko (2007 Adamenko, V. 2007. Neo-mythologism in music: From Scriabin and Schoenberg to Schnittke and Crumb, Hillsdale, NJ: Pendragon Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 79–81). [8] The CRI recording by the New York String Quartet, CRI SD 283. [9] See Edith Borroff's emphasis of the 'aesthetic visual quality' of Crumb's notation (Borroff, 1986 Borroff, E. 1986. Three American composers, Lanham & New York: University Press of America. [Google Scholar], p. 241). [10] For an in-depth study of another example of the intermedial use of intertextuality, see Clüver (2007 Clüver, C. 2007. "Luciano Berio's Sinfonia: The creative flow of a musico-verbal collage". In Creations: Medieval rituals, the arts, and the concept of creation, Edited by: Havsteen, S. R., Petersen, N. H., Schwab, H. W. and Østrem, E. 237–254. Turnhout: Brepols. [Google Scholar], pp. 229–246). [11] Hungarian counting of numbers 1–7 (Crumb, n.d., No. 66304, p. 4); Japanese, Russian, Swahili, German shouting of the numeral 13, pp. 5–6); Japanese counting from 1 to 7 (Crumb, n.d., No. 66304, p. 8). [12] As famously represented in Dante's Commedia, and see also the discussion of the notion of comedy in Dante's disputed epistola 13, § 28. I thank Eduardo Henrik Aubert for drawing my attention to this passage. See also Hardison (1965 Hardison, O. B. 1965. Christian rite and Christian drama in the Middle Ages, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. [Google Scholar], p. 291). [13] For the notion of 'foreground', see LaCocque & Ricoeur (1998, pp. xiii–xiv). See also Petersen, 2004 Petersen, N. H. 2004. "Introduction: Transformations of Christian traditions and their representation in the arts, 1000–2000". In Signs of change: Transformations of Christian traditions and their representation in the arts, 1000–2000, Edited by: Petersen, N. H, Clüver, C and Bell, N. 1–25. Amsterdam: Rodopi. [Google Scholar], pp. 1–2)

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