Product Description

Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall especially for Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Setting Hans Christian Andersen's fable in the format of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Lang elevates the suffering of the little match girl with poignant, evocative music. Lang's piece is scored for four voices and a few percussion instruments, played by the singers. They sing the sad story of a little girl who freezes to death selling matches on the street during a cold winter's night. In notes Lang wrote to accompany the Carnegie Hall premiere last October, he says he was drawn to Andersen's story because of how opposite aspects of the plot played off each other. 'The girl's bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her past memories, ' Lang says. 'Her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There's a kind of naive equilibrium between suffering and hope.'

Track Listing

1. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Come, Daughter
2. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: It Was Terribly Cold
3. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Dearest Heart
4. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: In An Old Apron
5. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Penance And Remorse
6. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Lights Were Shining
7. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Patience, Patience!
8. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Ah! Perhaps
9. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: Have Mercy, My God
10. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: She Lighted Another Match
11. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: From The Sixth Hour
12. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: She Again Rubbed A Match
13. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: When It's Time For Me To Go
14. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: In The Dawn Of Morning
15. The Little Match Girl Passion, for chorus: We Sit And Cry
16. For Love Is Strong, for chorus
17. I Lie, for chorus
18. Evening Morning Day, for chorus
19. Again (after Eclesiastes), for chorus

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7875 in Music
• Released on: 2009-06-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Hybrid SACD - DSD, Import
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Review
I don't think I've ever been so moved by a new, and largely unheralded, composition as I was by David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion, which is unlike any music I know. --Tim Page - Pulitzer Prize Juror

Customer Reviews

A Passion With Connections
I bought the Little Match Girl Passion out of curiosity because I've been + - about some of David Lang's music in the past. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been OK, but not good enough to keep. But it was great. It sounds like "minimalists meet the middle ages" but that doesn't really allow a full description of the original sounds and vocal usage in the piece. It has formal reminders of the Bach passions. It includes a direct correlation of the Little Match Girl's death with Jesus' suffering and death. But it also has obvious acquaintance with Schutz, Lassus and the Play of Daniel. And it still sounds modern with a nod to John Tavener. The percussion players are perfect and voices are really skilled in managing their music. Who would ever think of using one of the most emotionally manipulating cheesy stories of all time as an oratorio text? Then, who could present it in a way that uses elevated classical presentation while slowly working its way to a very emotionally effective end. And it's great to listen to, even if you don't know the text or the story. It's a very effective piece of music on its own terms. It should catch on with smaller new music groups and I think it might work very well in church performances. (It would be a lot more inspiring than most of the junk that gets played in churches.) Buy it, even if you never listen to new music.