Maya Beiser / David Lang: the day
Cantaloupe Music

On the day, the horrific events of September 11, 2001 at New York's World Trade Center resonate powerfully through two works David Lang composed for renowned cellist Maya Beiser, with the 2016 title piece conceived as a prequel to world to come (2003). The latter, written specifically in response to 9/11, is a meditation upon the soul's post-mortal journey, whereas the day focuses on life lived before that journey.

The collaborators were in New York City starting work on a multi-track cello piece when the towers fell and were, like so many others, shattered by the event. In the moving world to come, Beiser's cello and voice operate as separate yet connected elements, much like the body and soul, and Lang's piece documents their struggle to reunite in some post-earthly spiritual realm; granted such a description, it's hard not to experience the work as a memorialization of those who died in the tragedy and the way their own bodies and souls were so cruelly torn apart. In Beiser's words, “9/11 to me, with the images of the people falling from the burning towers forever frozen in my memory, invoked visions of the body falling down while the soul is floating up.”

To create the half-hour the day, Lang pondered what key moments individuals might select out of their lives and so imagined asking 300 people the simple question, “What was the most important day in your life?” To that end, he searched the phrase ‘I remember the day that I . . .' and catalogued the responses alphabetically into the text spoken in this performance by The Wooster Group's Kate Valk. Lang wove the responses into a single narrative so that it “would help us feel the weight of a life, as it is being lived.”

Jumpstarted by the opening words “I remember the day,” a stream of phrases follows, each one completing the line in a different way, some banal (“I got that bag in my hand,” “I had spicy food and liked it”) and others life-changing (“I found you,” “I was diagnosed”), and each one accompanied by Beiser's cello, whose ravishing sound she often multiplies into a small string section. As the piece advances, the vocal delivery both grows ever more mantra-like in its theme-and-variations design and increases in urgency as the tension ever so incrementally builds.

Valk's cadence isn't lacking in passion but neither it is overwrought; instead, the phrases are delivered with a semi-controlled cool, with Beiser's plaintive playing amplifying emotionally the speaker's reserve. In that repetition, we're presented with evidence of a limitless range of possible life choices but also reminded that life is constituted by the accumulation of one day after another. Though the piece adheres to a clearly delineated structure, it's not static: when Valk utters “I sang this song to you,” for example, the music suddenly soars, achieving a liftoff that will remain in place for the remainder. The voice-and-cello combination proves mesmerizing, the effect so strong one's attention constantly wavers back and forth between them as this ultimately uplifting piece unfolds.

The twenty-four-minute world to come eschews spoken text for wordless utterances by Beiser, their ghostly, ethereal character appropriate to the spirit of the work. As entrancing as the day's text is when spoken by Valk, world to come proves to be no less powerful, particularly in the way the vocal and cello parts unite and separate throughout. There are times when both appear, but others where one only is presented, and it's during the purely instrumental sections that Beiser's artistry comes most fully to the fore. Much as she does in the day, during world to come she generates multiple layers to simulate a mini-string orchestra to stunning effect. Suitably elegiac in tone, the piece takes a supplicating turn just before the fourteenth minute, the musical shift suggestive of souls, finally free of pain and suffering, rising heavenward. There's agitation aplenty, but world to come also conveys resolution, peace, and acceptance.

March 2018