Oct 29, 2014 Thanks. I have been to Kronos Quartet's concert of Black Angels, it was quite an experience. As far as Different Trains go, I like how ConTempo string quartet performs this work, they also have a nice video. It will take some time to download all and even more time hear all. I send you my regards with best wishes for 2015.
This disc is supposed to hurt. Just look at the program: it starts with 's Black Angels for electric string quartet, a work that is the aural equivalent of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and ends with 's String Quartet No.
8, a work that is either the aural equivalent of a monument to the victims of war and fascism written in the ruins of Dresden or the musical equivalent of a suicide note written before the composer joined the Communist Party. With the spooky and evocative performances of Spem in Alium, 's Doom. A Sigh, and ' There They Are!, this disc is so painful it could be the soundtrack for an unmade Kubrick movie. The question is, is this disc supposed to hurt so much? The is a harsh and aggressive ensemble with an angular approach to rhythm and structure and an overwhelming need to assert its individual and collective identity. It tears into the howling notes that begin Black Angels with the ferocity of The Furies and they don't take the pedal off the metal until the last gasp of the final Largo of the Eighth. Yet surely this is the intent of the music: 's Black Angels is as violently anti-war as 's Eighth is fatally anti-totalitarian, and any performance that doesn't hurt with the deep pain of righteous vehemence would hardly be worth hearing.
Nonesuch's 1990 digital sound is so in your face that it's in your skull.
The underlying structure of Black Angels is a huge arch-like design which is suspended from the three “Threnody” pieces. 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. An important pitch element in the work -- descending E, A, and D-sharp -- also symbolizes the fateful numbers 7-13.
William Blake 'The Good and Evil Angels', 1795/?c.1805. William Blake At certain points in the score there occurs a kind of ritualistic counting in various languages, including German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese and Swahili. There are several allusions to tonal music in Black Angels: a quotation from Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet (in the Pavana Lachrymae and also faintly echoed on the last page of the work); an original Sarabanda, which is stylistically synthetic; 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).
Henry Fuseli Satan Starting from the Touch of Ithuriel's Spear 1779. The amplification of the stringed instruments in Black Angels is intended to produce a highly surrealistic effect. Ex4 to mq4 decompiler software applications online.
This surrealism is heightened by the use of certain unusual string effects, e.g., pedal tones (the intensely obscene sounds of the Devil-Music); bowing on the “wrong” side of the strings (to produce the viol-consort effect); trilling on the strings with thimble-capped fingers. The performers also play maracas, tam-tams and water-tuned crystal goblets, the latter played with the bow for the “glass-harmonica” effect in God-Music. Sinfonietta Riga Black Angels for string quartet was written as a response to the Vietnam War. The work draws from an arsenal of sounds including shouting, chanting, whistling, whispering, gongs, maracas, and crystal glasses. The score bears two inscriptions: in tempore belli (in time of war) and 'Finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March, 1970'.