David Lang’s vocal cycle “Death Speaks”: at the intersection of the academic and the mainstream

Abstract

The article explores the interaction between academic and mass musical art in the vocal cycle “Death Speaks” by contemporary American composer David Lang (b. 1957). In this work, Lang continues the trend of interpenetration between these two spheres, a tendency inherited from his older minimalist contemporaries (Reich, Glass). The interaction between academic and mass stylistic strata occurs on multiple levels. On the verbal level, the German Romantic poetry of Schubert’s songs (Goethe, Heine, Muller, and others) is presented in the composer’s own English translation, in a simplified and condensed form, making it more accessible to a wider audience. On the musical language level, the work incorporates repetitive techniques of minimalism (combinatorics, phase shift, augmentation), which appear in both academic compositions and rock music. On the performing ensemble level, the crossover ensemble blurs the boundaries between stylistic strata, (professional musicians who have gained popularity as rock performers – Shara Worden, Owen Pallett, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner) and integrates elements of rock culture (electric guitar, drums, and performer versatility). The composer reveals the existential theme of death, which resonates across various cultural strata. A shared approach to the organization of musical material in indie rock (post-rock, according to A.U. Slobodchikova) and postminimalism has been identified: diatonica, repetitive compositional techniques, polyphonization of musical texture, and immersion in a single emotional state.