Work Information
David Lang : The Passing Measures
Programme Note
Composer Note: I think one of the reasons our commercial culture likes all music to be fast and snappy is because in fast music it is harder to recognize the passing of time. You listen to the tunes, to the catchy phrases, but you are not allowed to feel just how time slips away. Slow music is good for contemplation but is probably terrible for business, so you don't get much of it in your daily life. One of the noble things you can do in a piece of 'serious' music is allow for an experience that can't happen in your everyday life. The Passing Measures is that kind of experience. -- David Lang
Reviews
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This heartfelt, mournful piece, a wordless, 45-minute quasi-concerto for women's chorus, bass clarinet, and amplified orchestra, is a welcome surprise from a composer whose always deft and subtle work has often seemed ironic and arch. The clarinettist Marty Ehrlich, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and members of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus, conducted by Paul Herbert, provide a dignified performance, giving gentle life to the work's lustrous waves of color. [This is one of the] best classical albums of 2001.
Russell Platt, The New Yorker
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