David Lang - The National Anthems & The Little Match Girl Passion (2016)
Los Angeles Master Chorale; Calder Quartet; Grant Gershon, conductor
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 276 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 156 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Choral, Minimalism | Label: Cantaloupe Music | # CA21119 | Time: 00:56:25
Los Angeles Master Chorale; Calder Quartet; Grant Gershon, conductor
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 276 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 156 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Choral, Minimalism | Label: Cantaloupe Music | # CA21119 | Time: 00:56:25
Of the three Bang on a Can founder composers, David Lang’s music has always been the glassiest, the sparest, and for some listeners the most precious. In recent years, his aesthetic has become leaner still, paring down already simple material to gaunt extremes in something approaching neo-plainchant. The national anthems (note the lower case; nothing vainglorious here ) takes fragments of text from the anthems of all 193 United Nations member states and unfolds at speaking speed, with plenty of room for breaths between phrases and plenty of clarity to the words. It has the feel of sad and eerie intoning. The Los Angeles choir clinches the right sound for Lang – unflinching, spellbound – while the Calder Quartet gives sleek accompaniment. Also on the disc is a new choral version of Lang’s little match girl passion, the piece originally for four voices that won him the Pulitzer prize in 2008 and which, in the mouths of many, becomes a sort of collective prayer in the congregational tradition of Bach’s chorales.
