Los Angeles Master Chorale - David Lang: The National Anthems (2016)

The Los Angeles Master Chorale's recording of David Lang's 'the national anthems' is paired with a new recording of his 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning work 'the little match girl passion,' transforming this hour-long program into a unique panorama of Lang's writing process as it has evolved in recent years. But taken as a whole, the two works also make a lasting statement about our place in the world we share with each other. As Lang himself describes it: ""Both pieces try to use music to show us how we could be or should be better people. 'the national anthems' scours the anthems of all the countries in the world, hoping to find common ground that might allow us to understand each other, across all our artificial boundaries. And 'the little match girl passion' is an attempt to ennoble the idea that it's important for us to notice the suffering of people around us."" Also featuring the Calder Quartet, lauded by the New York Times as living proof that ""...the time-honored string quartet still provides fertile ground for innovation and surprise.

"Composer David Lang snipped words from the national anthems of all 193 United Nations member countries to weave together into a five-movement piece called the national anthems, performed here by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Calder Quartet. Overall, the effect is disquieting - the lyrical collage makes it clear just how much each country lays stake to the same kinds of claims and aspirations. Lang sets the piece in spare, sharply rendered sonic lines - each like a pen-and-ink drawing - but in this last movement, the chorus and strings bathe the listener in radiant susurrations of sound. Just gorgeous." --Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR Music's 100 Favorite Songs Of 2016, June 28, 2016.