Evening Music

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Thursday, December 06, 2007

When David Lang was given five different commissions for similar groups of instruments at the same time, he ended up collecting them all together into one large piece, "Child." We hear the second of Lang's colorful reminiscences on the challenges of youth, "My Very Empty Mouth."

Child

In Lang's words: "'Child' is my attempt to examine certain experiences as I remember (and misremember) them from my childhood." The title "my very empty mouth" comes from a phrase Lang learned as a child to help remember the order of the planets: mercury, venus, earth, and mars (Lang says he can't remember the rest — of the phrase, that is, not the planets).

buy Child at amazon.com
browse more music by David Lang at amazon