thirteen ways

“Imagine you are an egomaniacal, mid-20th century Russian violinist. It should have that sort of hysteria.”  

“That should be fine; it’s my favorite sort of violin playing anyway…”  

Working with composers is one of the chief joys of this job, especially when the composer at hand is as personally engaging as David Lang.

David worked with us on Monday (he was in town for a MusicNow performance of his entertaining, effective Increase), and it was a relief to find that he was genuinely happy with the shape his three-movement piece, a component of our big singing in the dead of night project (premiering in just two weeks, god help us), was taking.

The “egomaniacal” quote above comes from David’s attempts to get us to shape the first movement’s lines (marked ”hard, lyrical”) more convincingly. I was initially surprised by how much Romantic-ish “emoting” he wanted for this clean-lined, angular music, but the interpretation certainly gave this challenging music a greater sense of purpose; the movement became one long, disjunct Wagnerian endless-melody, rather than a clinical dissection of the key of g-minor.

Amusingly self-effacing, David several times proclaimed, “You know, a professional composer would have done that differently.” Explaining how the Bang on a Can composers take different roles when they work together, David laughed: “My job is to write the opener. I guess that’s what I’m good at.” He admitted that, when collaborating on a piece, “we do tend to second-guess each other.”While we were working on the second movement, I asked David about the Passacaille subtitle. He looked sheepish for a second, then cheerfully admitted that he had “borrowed” the slow, descending bass line from a older piece of his own which sourced its material from a Handel passacaglia.

Moving on to the fast, rockin’ third movement, David admitted that he wanted to write us a piece that could stand alone as an encore. The funky, irregular bass line had been sitting at the bottom of a drawer for several years and this seemed like a great way to build the music. (I love the idea of composers rifling through dirty laundry or a trash can full of rotting meat, in desperate search for the kernal that might generate a great masterpiece.)

David has a fine ear for ensemble balance and texture, and is clear and concise in his demands. He is also careful to choose his battles. Following a run-through of the pedal-to-the-metal third movement, the composer wanted more overall “shape”. He suggested starting lightly and softly, then increasing the intensity throughout the movement. We tried this, and David seemed mostly happy with the result. Several 8bb-ers chimed in with alternate expressive possibilities (soft piano intro, ensemble outburst; soft, contrasting middle section). Knowing that we understood his desire, he clearly didn’t want to get bogged down in the details: “You know, whatever you do, it doesn’t matter to me.” He trusted in our judgement as performers, and was happy to cede some artistic control. This was refreshing. 

“The last section of the movement originally went for much longer. When I wrote it, I would just set the midi running, and listen to this passage over and over. I really find it very emotional.” The “tune” in this section is made up of the high, long notes that Michael and I trade off in the course of playing a repeated surging figure. We were separating all of the notes, as written, but David sang the line with such passionate, throbbing intensity that we decided to “slur” (join) the notes. David fidgeted and paced the room; “When you work on it more, it will come.”