Review By Laurence Vittes,Gramophone,May 2009
Vibrant contemporary scores from a genre-bending Pulitzer Prize-winner
The world premiere recording of Pierced, a concerto for percussion, cello and piano with orchestra, highlights a disc that showcases the range of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s work. Those who are familiar with his consummate, measured handling of modern, minimal and rock elements will welcome this release, performed by rising young leading-edge figures like the three-man band called Real Quiet (percussionist David Cossin, cellist Felix Fan and pianist Andrew Russo), established figures like clarinettist Evan Ziporyn, and the adventurous Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
In each piece there is a possible disconnect between the emotionally intense outward aspects of the music and the “scenario”, for want of a better word, from which Lang is working. Musically, they are more straightforward. Both Pierced and Cheating, Lying, Stealing are marked by haunting repetitions against which lyrical elements rise and fall in a sort of shadow existence. Lou Reed’s Heroin is an exquisite set piece for genre-bending vocalist Theo Bleckmann and cellist Fan, the latter particularly sublime. How to Pray is another mesmerising cantilena, while Wed, taken from pieces Lang wrote for friends who have died, in an enchanting five minutes of earthly delight. If you listen to the five pieces straight through, as I imagine most listeners will do, the effects is of a powerful and eloquent work whose initial discordant violence is increasingly softened by gentle prayer and supplication.
The liner-notes, which feature a discussion between pianist Russo and composer Lang, is the kind of documentary material that makes such releases invaluable. What’s most interesting about the conversation, in addition to facts and reflections about the music, is how modern composers like Lang find value in the notion that their work belongs to the classical tradition, despite its apparent poor fit. “One of the things I like about this disc,” he says, “is that all of the pieces try to take classical music someplace it doesn’t usually go.” Maybe it’s time to come up with a new category in which to put this music.
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Review By Allen Gimbel,American Record Guide,March 2009
Naxos marks David Lang’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize with this collection. All but the first piece have been previously recorded. Most of the works built around the trio known as Real Quiet (Felix Fan, cello, Andrew Russo, piano and synthesizer, and David Cossin, percussion), who describe themselves as dedicated to “hard-edge acoustic and electric music”. That description is a good one for Lang’s aggressively clangorous post-minimalist style.
The new piece is Pierced (2007) (sounds like a Marc-Anthony Turnage title), a nightmarish ordeal in two connected parts for cello, piano, percussion, and strings. The first part consists of a jerky cyclic pattern for the three soloists in unison while the tremolo string orchestra produces a mysterious, gloomy background. The second part sets mournful “sigh” figures for the soloists against dark, minor-key flailing in the strings (Hitchcock comes to mind); insistent pounding drives the piece along. A drum solo out of Nielsen spins out of control toward the end for emphasis. The overall effect is hypnotic and disturbing and brings up memories of 80s Rave culture.
Moving back to its predecessor in the 60s, Lang pays homage to the Velvet Underground with his arrangement of Lou Reed’s suicide anthem ‘Heroin’ for (processed) voice (a smooth Theo Bleckmann) and arpeggiating cello solo (an overprocessed Felix Fan). The result is spooky and likely to offend the innocent classical music patron, who is unlikely to be wandering around in this grimy territory anyway. Crossover audiences won’t go near it, either.
Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993–95), for bass clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion, is a title said to reflect characteristics of the composer’s personality. The piece consists of electrified ostinato patterns that are “unreliable” in their repetitions, changing and metamorphosing internally before the piece simply moves on to the next. Long cello lines soar over the metallic pounding. But there is a recap—an uncharacteristic nod to classical norms (Lang is a graduate of Yale).
How to Pray (2002), for cello, electric guitar, piano, and drums, is possibly best known as the soundtrack for Bill Morrison’s 2005 film of the same name (the piece came first). Cantaloupe 21029 (J/F 2006) includes the film on DVD (with other goodies). The piece is expressive—an intense 10-minute ritual examination of the components of a single arpeggiated minor triad…The program ends with Wed (1995 or 96), a brief piano piece oscillating between a single major and minor triad…The booklet contains a helpful interview with the composer by Mr Russo.
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Review By Michael Kabran,PopMatters,February 2009
He may not be Kanye West but, in the world of contemporary classical and avant-garde music, David Lang’s star is seriously blingin’. It was no surprise to critics when the New York-based composer nabbed 2008’s Pulitzer Prize in music for his Little Match Girl Passion, a powerfully simplistic and surprisingly accessible work, based on a Hans Christian Andersen fable and inspired by a Bach composition, scored only for voice and percussion. Among his musical colleagues—in and out of the classical realm—Lang had already earned major street cred for co-founding the now legendary Bang on a Can musical foundation. Bang on a Can has commissioned works from a wide range of exciting artists, including noise rocker Thurston Moore, jazz drummer John Hollenbeck, and experimental pianist Matthew Shipp. The organization has also served as the catalyst for a variety of touring and recording groups like the similarly named Bang on a Can All-Stars.
What has made Lang particularly appealing as a composer is that, unlike many of his peers, he has never shied away from rock and jazz and never championed classical music’s superiority over pop and folk forms. Pierced, a brilliant new collection featuring four Lang originals and an arrangement of the Velvet Underground classic anti-anthem “Heroin”, is no exception. The album epitomizes Lang’s aesthetic, feeding equally off jazz, pop, and classical experimental music, with the swinging polyrhythms of post-bop, the edginess of metal, and the atonal inflections of horror movie music.
Pierced‘s eponymous and aptly named opening track, which features conductor Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project, is a rhythmic smorgasbord that seems to pull from jazz, rock, and dub-step realms all at once. The song begins with a jazzy repeating staccato passage of chromatic percussion—xylophone, vibraphone, etc.—that pierces the air, creating an uncomfortable, almost maddening feeling in listener. A second section replaces the chromatic percussion with staccato strings that seem to gnarl and fizzle like punk power chords. The entire song is underscored by percussionist David Cossin’s muscular bass drum which steamrolls out of control into an almost dub-step snare and kick drum coda.
Lang’s arrangement of Lou Reed’s “Heroin” proves to be the album’s biggest success. At first listen, even the most ardent critics of the Velvet Underground would be appalled at Lang’s apparent destruction of a punk classic. Gone are the rough-around-the-edges, off-key vocals and sparse, distorted power-chord accompaniment that made the original version such an underground sensation. It’s only after repeated listens that you come to realize that Lang isn’t performing destruction as much as he is performing deconstruction. The song, performed as a duo by cellist Felix Fan and rising star jazz vocalist Theo Bleckmann, is somber, slow, and polished. Like the Zapruder film, Lang has slowed every syllable and every chord, in an effort to expose every blemish. Each word is a series of tones, chanted by Bleckmann like a Gregorian monk. Each chord is a sequence of arpeggiated notes, which Fan infuses with a velvety coolness. The song’s meaning is conveyed not in the meaning of the lyrics but in their sound and the sound of the accompanying chords. As a result, the starkness and accessibility of the original version isn’t lost but simply transmogrified. It is a triumph of music in any genre.
The rest of the songs on Pierced are all also highlights. “Cheating, Lying, Stealing”, a Lang composition from 1993, is a clear predecessor to the album’s title track. It features repeating rhythmic passages augmented by electronic flourishes that give the song a futuristic quality. This music could easily have served as the soundtrack to Bladerunner or Running Man. “How to Pray”, a 2002 work, includes a swinging piano and string riff that is sure fodder for hip-hop producers the world over. “Wed”, featuring Andrew Russo on solo keyboard playing a minimalist work, is delicate and funereal, a perfect theme to HBO’s Six Feet Under.
Pierced is a significant achievement, not only because it sates the appetite of the diehard 21st century classic music aficionado but because it serves as an avant-garde music gateway drug to modern jazz, post-rock, and electronica enthusiasts—fans of William Parker and Anthony Braxton, Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Madlib and the Bug should take notice, if they haven’t already.
Whether or not Pierced is the future of experimental music or classical music or all music remains to be seen. What is certain is that Lang has seriously laid down the gauntlet for future composers across all genres with a deceptively simple, beautiful, unsettling, and varied work that owes as much to Grandmaster Flash and Brian Eno as it does to Arnold Schoenberg and Morton Feldman. That is a serious accomplishment.
