The Black Cat
Eric Bartlett, cellist, Wu Han, pianist, Larry Bell, narrator, April 1988, 92nd St. YMHA, New York City
Eric Bartlett, cellist, Wu Han, pianist, Larry Bell, narrator, Longy School, Boston, 1988; Andrés Díaz, cellist, Michael Dewart, pianist, Steven McConnell, narrator, March 5, 1991, Boston Conservatory; Harry Clark, cellist, Sandra Schulmann, pianist, Robert J. Lurtsema, narrator, Chamber Music Plus, Hartford, Conn., October 27, 1991; Eric Bartlett, cellist, Larry Bell, pianist, Robert J. Lurtsema, narrator, April 10, 1998, Boston Conservatory
“The Black Cat” harkens back to the monodrama made popular in the nineteenth century by Franz Liszt’s melodramas such as Der Traurige Monch. Richard Strauss’s later monodrama Enoch Arden, recorded by Claude Reins and Glenn Gould, helped inspire my ghost-story setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s familiar tale of murder and madness.
I augment the monodrama’s typical narrator-and-piano instrumentation to include a cello. The cello represents the cat; the piano portrays the man telling the story and also sets the climate for the individual scenes. The cello has its own leitmotifs, for example, the tri-tone glissando that mimics a “meow” similar to the effect found in Ravel’s animal opera. The music is based on the opening melody in G-sharp minor (frequently necessitating the F double-sharp scull-and-crossbones on the page). Although the narrator’s part is not notated musically, I carefully connected the words with the accompanying music. Poe’s characteristic blend of the horrible and the ordinary is not without moments of humor–after all, a grown man is driven crazy by an innocent small animal!
The Black Cat (1987) was commissioned by and is dedicated to cellist Eric Bartlett, who, along with the composer, is a cat lover.
[performance] “In reviving an outmoded and melodramatic 19th-century form, the composer assiduously avoided sticking tongue in cheek, writing into the music a torrent of kitschy effects that Liszt himself might have appreciated. A rising tri-tone glissando on the cello simulated the cat’s meow, for example, and the pianist (Wu Han) played tremolos and arpeggios to indicate the narrator’s increasing distress.” –Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times (May 1, 1988)
[recording] “Could the melodrama be coming back? . . . Larry Bell’s The Black
Cat sets Edgar Allan Poe’s famous tale of a man driven to insanity by the presence of first his own black cat, which he kills, and its replacement. The latter disrupts his already perilous hold on sanity, and, after driving him to murder his wife, manages to reveal the presence of the corpse to the authorities. The narrator tell[s] his tale while awaiting hanging for the murder. Bell gives the character of the cat to the cello, making much use of the instrument’s capacity for a variety of other-worldly effects, while the piano portrays the narrator as well as setting the scene. It is a very effective work. Perhaps the highest compliment that one can pay is that the music adds to the power and effectiveness of Robert J. Lurtsema’s narration (Lurtsema is the voice of WGBH Boston and is thus familiar to all fans of public television.)
“. . . The performances center around Eric Bartlett, a member of the New York Philharmonic and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The recorded sound is very good. This is a fine release.” –John Story, Fanfare May/June 1999
“Larry Bell, who holds the doctorate from Juilliard, has won a long list of prizes and grants, and teaches at the New England Conservatory. This disc offers four compositions which differ widely in mood and performing forces. The Black Cat, a monodrama, is an adaptation of a horror story by Edgar Allan Poe. A narrator relates the tale, ‘the cello represents the cat; the piano portrays the man telling the story and also sets the climate for the individual scenes’ in which ‘a grown man is driven crazy by an innocent small animal’ (liner notes) . . .
“The music once again combines traditional and modern sounds–an intriguing and satisfying union. The performances are first-rate (Bartlett is Acting Associate Principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic). It is exciting to find new and rewarding literature for cello!” –Jocelyn Mackey, Pan Pipes Fall 1999
The last work is a melodrama for narrator, cello and piano based on Poe’s tale. The Black Cat which the composer quite efficiently adapted from the original, leaving out many of the asides and thus tightening the narration. The cello represents the cat whose ‘meow’ is aptly stylised by a glissando, whereas the piano represents the narrator and sets the scene of the various episodes of the story. A superbly written and highly entertaining piece well worth a hearing. -Hubert Culot, MusicWeb.uk (Jan. 2003)
Text to The Black Cat by Larry Bell
from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe
Music intro.
Narrator alone:
Mad indeed would I be to expect or solicit belief for the most wild narrative which I am about to tell. Yet mad am I not –and surely do I not dream. My purpose is to place before the world a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me.
With music:
From my infancy I was especially fond of animals. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a dog, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere “Man”.
I married early. We had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. The latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black. Pluto—this was the cat’s name— was my favorite pet and playmate.
For several years, my general temperament had experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I even offered my wife personal violence. However, I still retained sufficient regard for Pluto to restrain me from maltreating him. But my disease grew upon me – for what disease is like Alcohol!– and at length even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My soul seemed, at once to take its flight from my body. I took my penknife, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut out one of its eyes from its socket! I blush! I burn! I shudder, while I tell the damnable atrocity.
Short musical interlude
With music:
The cat slowly recovered. The socket of the last eye presented a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Who has not found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; Hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes; – hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; hung because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin.
That night I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife and myself made our escape from the conflagration. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself to despair. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The wall with one exception had fallen in. About this wall a dense crowd were collected. The words “strange”! “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity.
I saw as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. There was a rope about the animal’s neck.
Narrator alone:
It did not fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance.
With music:
One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object. It was a black cat—fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, and rubbed against my hand. When I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. By slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. Gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence. What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It covered me with its loathsome caresses. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly because-I absolutely dreaded the beast. I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest possible chimeras. The white mark had been originally very indefinite; but by nearly imperceptible degrees, it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name –it was now the image of a hideous – of a ghastly thing—
Narrator alone:
—of the GALLOWS! Oh mournful symbol of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of Death!
With music:
Evil thoughts became my sole intimates. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; My uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers. One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an ax, I aimed a blow at the animal. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the ax in her brain, She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
Narrator alone:
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself to the task of concealing the body. I determined to wall it up in the cellar, as the monks of the Middle Ages are recorded to have walled up their victims. For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks in one wall, insert the corpse and wall up the whole as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.
With music:
When I had finished, my next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had firmly resolved to put it to death.
But it appeared that the crafty animal forebore to present itself. It is impossible to describe or to imagine the deep, the blissful sense of relief the absence of the detested creature occasioned. For one night I soundly and tranquilly slept; yes, slept, even with the burden of murder upon my soul.
Narrator alone:
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very
With music:
unexpectedly, into the house and proceeded to make a rigorous investigation of the premises.
Short musical interlude
With music:
Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. At length, they descended into the cellar. My heart beat calmly. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
Short musical interlude
Narrator alone:
“Gentleman,” I said a last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. By the bye, gentlemen, this—
Music alone
Narrator alone:
is a well-constructed house, I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls –are you going gentlemen?
Music alone
Narrator alone:
These walls are solidly put together;” and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado
With Music:
I rapped heavily with a cane upon that very portion of the brick work behind which stood the corpse of my wife. No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, then I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! –by a cry at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly inhuman – a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall.
In the next instant a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me to murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman.
I had walled the monster up within the tomb!