Angels-MUSIC, ANGELS IN

Angels have often been represented singing or
playing harps, trumpets, or lutes. It is not usually
difficult to recognize angels in the visual arts,
even when they lack wings, but it is sometimes
difficult to detect them in music, unless a direct
allusion is provided by the words.
Although angel voices abound in Christmas
hymns and carols, such as “Hark the Herald
Angels Sing,” for the most part historical
knowledge is essential in order to recognize
angels in music (independent of lyrics). This
issue is discussed in some musicological literature,
although more often in connection with
bad angels than with good ones. Evil often
seems to be more compelling than good, making
the Devil seem more interesting than God.
Reinhold Hammerstein, for example, in his
Diabolus in Musica a German study of the
iconography of medieval music, focuses on bad
angels. One of the basic ways of alluding to
them musically is through the use of what he calls pervertierte instrumente.
One “perverts” an instrument to produce, for instance, a horrible
cacophony. When this is set beside a beautifully harmonious musical
sequence, the contrast, along with minimal verbal help either from
the title or from an advance interpretation in the published program,
forms a pointer.
In Robert Schumann’s Faust (first performed in 1862) it is possible
to detect an evil angel taunting Gretschen in church. Then, in the
epilogue, after she is transported to heaven, we can hear choirs of the
good angels singing. Krzysztof Penderecki, in his Dies Irae (1978) seeks
to present a hideous vision of hell on earth in which Satan and his
hosts have descended to show us the nature of their terrible evil
power. We can hear the lamentations of the damned and the vicious
shrieks of their masters. In medieval mythology the Devil was supposed
to leave an indescribably hideous stench behind him. In Penderecki’s
music one can almost smell his stench rising through the
lamentations in this foretaste of hell.
In Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (1892, rev. 1901–10)), a
soprano angel sings, in an almost childlike way, a celebration of celes-
tial joy. Mahler also uses angel motifs in his second and third symphonies.
Frederic Massenet, in Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame (1902), presents
moving musical imagery of good angels carrying to heaven the
soul of a humble and devout man who is a juggler by trade and has
offered his juggling, all that he has, to God. In Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony
(1855–56), we can hear the angelic voices in the ninth heaven,
to which Beatrice has guided Dante in the twenty-seventh canto of
the Paradiso, after he has heard St. Peter bitterly rebuking his successors
in the apostolic chair for avarice and power mania.
We know to expect circling angels ecstatically singing the praises
of God. Very different is the Dance of Satan and his hosts in Job
(1927–30), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, who, although working in an
Anglican context, was of a mystical temper. His music may perhaps be
better described as religious rather than as belonging to the Anglican—
or indeed any—choral church tradition.
Giuseppe Verdi, in Giovanna d’Arco (1845), uses a somewhat mischievous
method to express the contrast between good and bad
angels. Joan is confronted by a group of each kind. The bad ones sing
what is really a variation of a Neapolitan bordello song, while the
good ones sing church music. That is a comparatively simple device
for a composer to use to bring home the distinction. As musical drama
Verdi’s device is successful. The contrasting imagery of the bordello
and the church colorfully expresses one symbol of the warfare between
Lucifer and Michael, between the Devil and God.
In Sergei Prokofiev’s Third Symphony (1928) the angel who
brings music to the girl is neither good nor bad; at any rate she does
not seem to belong to one category or the other. Nevertheless, the
entity is plainly supernatural. By contrast, Wagner’s Der Engel is a song
about an angel engaged in the specific task of guiding him; it is thus a
close cousin of the guardian angel concept, set to music.