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INSTRUMENTAL ISSUES OF THREE WORKS:

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKIS
GEORGE CRUMBS
AND CHINARY UNGS

Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima,

Black Angels
Spiral

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), by the Polish composer Kryzsztof
Penderecki (B. 1933) is a piece written for fifty-two string instruments, structured in
three sections, of which only the first one will be discussed here. In this piece, timbre
has assumed a dominant role over the other parameters, through a stratification of
timbral sonority, where timbres organize the texture of a work the same way pitches
form the structural strands of counterpoint.

Threnody explores contratimbral string effects using both precise and indefinite
pitches. Measures 6-7 (Example 1) reveal twenty-four violins in a combined crescendo
of sustained pitches.

Example 1

Each of these pitches represents the highest note of the instrument (indefinite
pitch), as indicated in the previous page, at the beginning of the piece. Obviously
twenty-four players so directly will produce a composite indeterminate pitch, since each

of the twenty-four may theoretically arrive at a different highest pitch. This timbre is to
be produced without vibrato, in a contrast to the wide vibrato of the sound in the group
representing Violas 6-10. These two timbral layers or masses are superposed above the
collective entrances of ten celli, each group of which presents a series of string effects
involving both percussive and bowed articulations. This textural unit is, in a sense,
polytimbral, since four different kinds of modes of attack are introduced at different
points in time and sustained for approximately fifteen seconds. The basses join the
violas mentioned earlier to form a sort of web, enveloping the celli. Motion is acquired
both by the series of dissimilar events in the celli and by the crescendo of the
surrounding strings. Also, the conflict of high, indiscriminate pitches produces the
illusion of constant vacillation, although, from a different viewpoint, this part of the
texture is essentially static.
The succeeding textural event amounts to a fifteen-second intensification of the
preceding one through a widening of the vibrati of the upper violins, an increase in the
number of instruments in the middle layer of mixed bowed and struck sounds, and a
transformation of the wide vibrato in the low strings into a very rapid one, marked Z.
At this point in the score the upper and lower strings actually exchange articulations.

One of the most outstanding novelties of this work is the use of wide orchestral
clusters throughout the piece. This device had already been used before, like in Bergs
Wozzeck, but just as an aisled feature. However, in Threnody, the large band of sound
starting in measure 15 (Example 2) consists of fifty-two stringed instruments playing in
quarter- tones, producing an enormous quarter-tone cluster that ranges over two octaves.

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Example 2

This massive approach to sound seems to be the final development of sound for
its own sake; in sound as a mass, the total vertical sound negates the identity of the
single pitch and chord. The composer has notated the pitches because he desires the
particular timbre of the register in which the sound band is heard. Except for the

simultaneous sounding of many pitches, harmony no longer exists in this example. It is,
as Watkins says, the exploration of a new sonic world with traditional instruments.1
Although Threnody is scored for normal string instruments, a number of special playing
techniques are introduced to extend the range of sonic possibilities, such as playing
between the bridge and tailpiece of the instrument, playing behind the bridge or on the
tailpiece itself, striking the sounding board with fingertips, etc.

George Crumb wrote Black Angels in 1970 for amplified string quartet. This
amplification is used for balance and for the unique alteration of timbre that electronic
processing adds to the ensemble. Besides, the amplification enhances the effectivity of
the multiple effects that the instruments produce. The uniqueness of these effects and
how they build together an extremely espressive, quasi romantic atmosphere is
characteristic in this piece, as generally happens with the rest of Crumbs music.

The underlying structure of Black Angels is a huge arch-like design which is

suspended from three "Threnody" pieces that give a three part structure. 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, reflected in the grouping of

notes, chords and figures into units of 7 and 13, while perhaps not immediately
1

Glenn Watkins. Soundings. Music in the Twentieth Century (New York: Schirmer, 1988), 498

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, the descending E, A, and D-sharp (see Example 3), also
symbolizes the fateful numbers 7-13, for, counting semitones downward, 7 is the
interval between 13 and 1.
Example 3

At certain points in the score there occurs a kind of ritualistic counting in various
languages, including German, French, Russsian, 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; several references to the
Latin sequence Dies Irae (like in Danse macabre). 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), besides the mentioned Dies Irae.

The amplification of the stringed instruments in Black Angels is intended to produce

a highly surrealistic effect. This surrealism is heightened by the use of certain unusual

string effects (in adition to the traditional ones, like glissandos, sul ponticello, and
percussive pizzicato): pedal tones (the intensely obscene sounds of the Devil-Music);
holding the bow underhand in the manner of viol players (to produce the viol-consort
effect); bowing between the pegs and the left-hand fingers; trilling on the strings with
thimble-capped fingers. The performers also play maracas and tam-tams, in some cases
simultaneously along with real playing, like in Example 4:

Example 4

The third work to be discussed, Chinary Ungs Spiral (1987), is written for cello, piano
and percussion. The language used for the harmonic and melodic structure is quite
traditional in essence, colored with Eastern elements like the pentatonic scale that opens
the piece, with cello, piano and crotales at the unison on the high register (Example 5),
or the glissandi that connect stepwise intervals on the cello part (Example 6).

Example 5

Example 6

The cello is used in all its range, reaching high points like the A in measure 2 (see Ex.
6), and continuously employing the harmonics of the instrument. Traditional effects
like sul ponticello or jette are frequently used. In fact, this continuous employment of
effects, although traditional ones, is what makes it sound modern: typical cello
cantabiles are an exception here, like the one in measure 58 (Example 7).

Example 7

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The piano has a prominently percussive approach, therefore being very close to the
percussion part. Indeed, they are sometimes conplementary to each other (see Example
8).

Example 8

In general, this whole piece has a very peculiar sonority, reminding us of some kind of
Eastern music. The choice of instrumentation is crucial to this element of connotation,
but so it is the scales and tonalities used. As a language, though, it is not as new as one
might expect. The use of minor and major keys, together with that of the pentatonic
scale and some kind of chromatic deviations, are the principal elements to play here,
and those are considered traditional elements in these days.