Black Angels by George Crumb is one of the most challenging works on this edition of Festival 20/21. The war theme of the work may be becoming dated. The message is anything but.
The Dutch Ragazze Quartet tours in October with a brand new production. Works by Britten and Pärt are programmed twice, as a cocoon around Crumb's electronic string quartet Black Angels. A jab at the Vietnam War between the reconciling And One of the Pharisees and passages from Britten's American first string quartet.
It is all too easy to see Pärt's And One of the Pharisees as a salve after Crumb's blows. But the contrast worked as expected. At the beginning of the programme you are gently introduced by the choral work. Concluding you listen completely differently. You focus more intensely on the forgiving text.
But the main attraction of the concert were Crumb's black angels. The Ragazze Quartet balances between devilish rage and heavenly fragility. The quartet proves this not only on their instruments, but they also let their voices be heard. There is German shrieking in Threnody II, Black Angels opposed to the quieter French counting in the following section. Because yes, numbers must not be missing from a work by Crumb.
The four ragazze are most fragile when they hang their stringed instruments on hooks and exchange them for glass harmonicas. The thin sound of the bows on the crystal glasses sends shivers down your spine. Not least because it evokes the falling napalm bombs that devastated Southeast Asia in the last century.
The Vietnam War is for me a subject from history lessons. But in Leuven it was still painfully close. May I give you a tip in advance. Keep Monday, March 18 free in your calendar now. Then this programme will come to Belgium again for the Klara festival.
- WHAT: George Crumb: Black Angels / Benjamin Britten: String Quartet no. 1, movement 1 & 3 / Arvo Pärt: And One of the Pharisees
- WHO: Ragazze Quartet & Psallentes
- WHERE: Iers College, Leuven
- WHEN: Wednesday 10 October 2018
- AS PART OF: Festival 20/21