Watch Montclair State's Harry Partch Ensemble in David Lang's 'Collected Stories: Heroes' @ Carnegie Hall...Next to WQXR's Strauss, Sibelius

Last week, David Lang, Carnegie Hall's Debs Composer Chair, oversaw a brilliantly curated series of concerts he called Collected Stories.

From April 22-29, his programming explored subjects commonly found in music--heroes, spirits, love/loss, travel, (post)folk.

This kind of "program music," where composition is created with a clear and concise narrative, proved to be controversial back in the days of Brahms and even integral serialism.

But it worked for Lang and Ben Bagby in Beowulf on the first night of Carnegie's Collected Stories: Heroes.

And we really loved Lang's pairing of Harry Partch, too. Montclair State can no longer afford to store Partch's instruments, so we hope this wasn't the last chance to hear them for a while.

Thanks to the good people at WQXR, Classicalite now has five symphonic storytellers essential in exploring what David Lang featured during last week's concerts.

It's a great listen. And read.

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Tags

Carnegie Hall, David Lang, Richard Strauss