American Masterpieces DavidThe Newness of Lang by Steven Schick

n my student days at the Staatliche “new” in new music, my Freiburg classmates In his percussion music, Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, I had tripped on one of the principal, and Ifound myself seated behind an older dangerous, conceits of contemporary music: the woman at a concert of particularly dour that, above all, it must be new. They fell new music by young German composers. into the ultimate trap of newness: excluding co-founder demonstrates She sat through most of the concert until, references to pre-existing music quickly apparently exasperated, she stood suddenly leads to a narrowing path of possibilities and and shouted, “You call this music?” ultimately to a vocabulary of conformism that true innovation My fellow students turned to stare and in which, whatever else the music might be, grumbled their objections. They were right it was not new. Two years earlier, in a 20th- incorporates the past. to take offense. What she should have century analysis class at the University of shouted was, “You call this new?” Iowa, my classmate sidestepped Through an overly devout reading of the that pothole. He claimed in class that a passage in Wozzeck was not all that different from a section in a new Talking Heads song and that both passages had something in common with Wagner. Our fellow students grumbled their objections. But what David was asserting at that moment was a fresh idea—really new—that connections across the contentiously defined boundaries of history and genre were not to be avoided, but rather embraced. Borrowing was permitted. That stance, in which David proclaimed David Lang (right) that popular and art music, recent and Opposite: So- Percussion older music, might share the same space, performing Lang’s so-called made him an ideal composer for percussion laws of nature at the 2008 instruments. After all, the search for Bang on a Can Marathon common ground, especially in cultural terms, had been central to early 20th- century percussion music. From the outset this music was a veritable Tower of Babel,

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exploding on the scene in a starburst of ideas about percussion music, David Lang telephone couldn’t deliver sufficient fidelity, multiple cultures. The composers of the likewise has always been ready to mix things he trusted my judgment. The working draft great early pieces—from George Antheil up. By doing so, he has created a fascinating of the piece was completed shortly before to Edgard Varèse to —thought library of fresh percussion music. the first performance at La Mama in 1991, nothing of placing Asian gongs next to Latin David’s first percussion solo, The Anvil and subsequent refinements took place bongos; glockenspiels next to oxen bells. Chorus, developed in a way that had a lot in regular debriefings after each concert. Yet as the century wore on, the relationship to do with our friendship. After our time The freedom in the piece’s sound world is between Western avant-garde percussion at the we went our matched by its cultural fluidity. The Anvil music and its polycultural roots had grown separate ways. But when David founded Chorus seems like both a drum set (with five uneasy. Even , a composer Bang on a Can with his Yale classmates foot pedals) and a gamelan (wherein lower whose music I am devoted to, thought Michael Gordon and , we instruments play slower music and treble that his late percussion music, scored for began working together again. I was a instruments ornament them). Periodicity, congas, bongos and West African djembes, regular guest performer in the Bang on repetition, and recall in the piece come contained “no folkloric contamination.” a Can Marathons and later the founding from both cultures. There is also a lot of Here he clearly missed the point. percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. late 20th-century concert music here: a A mid-century generation of American The Anvil Chorus was the first installment performer comes on stage, bows, and plays composers reinstated the cultural fluidity of a series of a dozen or so pieces of David’s from a score. The Anvil Chorus lives in a of the early percussion music. The most that I have commissioned, premiered, or big world. important of these was , whose toured. This music has become a part of The great danger in music of this breadth masterpiece Drumming was composed after our friendship and allows us to take certain is that its openness will lead to a lack of a study trip to West Africa in the early risks together. The Anvil Chorus is a work focus, to a kind of hyphenated identity in 1970s. But Drumming is much more than scored for 14 percussion instruments of which no single aspect takes prominence. African-inspired music. It bears Reich’s the player’s choice. I was in San Diego David’s remedy is his variation on what I imprint as a jazz drummer; it shows his love and David lived in New York. Our daily think of as the Cage theorem: freedom in of Bach and of early vocal music; it shows rehearsals were held on the phone—I the area of sound production is directly his willingness to combine worlds. As the would discover a new sound and play it most important American heir to Reich’s for him. When the little speaker in the continued on pg 175

59 continued from pg 59 proportional to the rigor of its formal either of us has known. A string of failed world to allow the composer some latitude construction. In early Cage percussion attempts to commission the piece ended in formal planning. But an individual’s music, the more volatile the sound world, when the University of Iowa funded a walk is very like a fingerprint—unique the more puritanical were the constraints single scene from the opera as a part of its and irreproducible—and becomes the of form. Following Cage here—and to centennial celebrations. (The remainder ultimately unpredictable sound source, some extent Steve Reich as well—David of the work remains un-commissioned at requiring formal constraint. Lang allows himself great latitude in the the time of this writing.) Hamsun’s story Walking. Robots. A piece modeled on choice of sound and aesthetic valence. is about a man who does not or will not drum set playing. None of it is new. But Counterbalancing that latitude is a strict work and as a result is gradually starving. by borrowing—unselfconsciously and un- adherence to highly constructed rhythmic To avoid his landlord, to whom he owes abashedly, inventively—David Lang has cycles and formal plans that contain and money, he spends his days walking exchanged the narrowness of newness for focus dispersed sonic energies. In each of through Christiania (now Oslo). In the the big open world of freshness. It is a David’s subsequent percussion pieces, the aria, four percussionists walk in carefully trade worth making any day. options grew and, by extension, the formal constructed eighth-, quarter- and dotted- containment became more rigorous. quarter note pulses on different materials— Percussionist Steven Schick has commissioned Scraping Song is a work for freely chosen gravel, sand, wood and stone—while a or premiered more than 100 new works. He noise instruments and four scrapers. Much soloist “walks” an obbligato solo part and is Distinguished Professor of Music at the of the sound is unscored, but the rhythmic recites the places in Christiania he visits. University of , San Diego, artistic cycling is extremely controlled: essentially One might think that walking, even on director of the percussion group red fish blue a lesson in factorials, as the piece explores varied surfaces, would produce a uniform fish, and music director and conductor of the the number of possible combinations of enough sound La Jolla Symphony & Chorus. five- and six-beat patterns within a four- part phrase. The most recent Lang solo work, String of Pearls, for marimba, is the exception that proves the theorem. In n Seaso , 2010 the smorgasbord of varied and enticing 8th gust 9 percussion timbres, the marimba is a 4 —Au une 14 straightforward single color—nourishing J OL but not exciting, a little like that bowl of HO garbanzo beans at the end of the salad bar. S SC With comparatively little sonic freedom AO to constrain, formally String of Pearls is a T Fantasia. SIC As a farewell gift when I left the Bang on U L F M ESTIVA a Can All-Stars, David wrote Unchained O SIC F e: . It consists of a melody of just R MU Includ Melody MBE Faculty eight glockenspiel notes that are partnered CHA rtists & rming A t with a noise instrument chosen by the Perfo Quarte o String performer. Note and noise are to be played orrome uartet • B String Q et in unison in a perfect Langian mapping entano g Quart • Br ce Strin of constraint onto the unpredictable land- Lawren ianist • St. onald, p scape of noise. In recent versions of the ert McD violist • Rob , guest piece, I have collaborated with computer ael Tree musician William Brent, who devised • Mich sixteen robotic instruments to play a r for hedule o l: doubled noise part. ncert sc ic schoo For a co the mus m A fascinating recent piece is the “walking tion on usic.co informa hoolofM aria” from David’s percussion opera .TaosSc Hunger. Hunger, based on the Knut • www ex.com @newm Hamsun novel, has been the longest- • tsofm running uncompleted project that

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