The performance of David Lang’s the national anthems at the Met, appropriately, was the first time I celebrated the 4th of July – to mark my 17th year since arriving in New York and the longest time I have ever lived in one place. I was introduced to his music in 2010 in a graduate seminar called “Music After 1945” through the piece Cheating, Lying, Stealing. Its irregular pounding rhythms seemed too aggressive, yet the brief moments of fleeting beauty and the humility expressed in the program note stuck with me.

Then came The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, which has, since 2018, remained one of the most memorable experiences. At that time, unassumingly, I called Lang’s music “simple, repetitive, deeply human,” and every following piece of his confirmed that description. This was followed by The Little Match Girl Passion, paired with Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel at a concert in YIVO under the label “secular sacred music” – a concept I’ve been exploring in my endlessly forthcoming book. In a post-show talk, Lang explained that the prolonged quietude and repetition – a sonorous landscape that sprawls without changes – is meant to prepare a listener for an important statement, such as the viola’s quasi-Hebraic melody in Rothko Chapel. (Lang develops the idea of secular sacred music in a thought-provoking essay published ahead of the performance of his poor hymnal.)

Experiencing the subtle beauty of the national anthems in a large museum gallery with many random listeners hissing, coming and going, might seem irritating. Yet, standing right next to the musicians, I could still enjoy the tranquility and familiar harmonies which, for the first time, reminded me of Arvo Pärt. Lang’s focus in this piece is not on the music, but on the idea, a common theme expressed in the texts of 193 nations, that freedom is fragile and easily lost. Carefully rendered by Clarion Choir and Catalyst Quartet, the piece sounded like a psalm, or even a prayer, pleading for the recovery of human wisdom. The introspection and reevaluation of what is essential – an antidote to traditional fireworks – that we so desperately need today.

Erlena Dlu

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