David Lang: love fail
LOVE FAIL
This newly expanded choral arrangement of David Lang’s love fail, performed by the renowned Lorelei Ensemble and conducted by Beth Willer, adds haunting texture and power, as well as a more fully rounded sound, to Lang’s austere original. Praised for their “impeccable musicality and pure-voiced precision” by the Boston Globe after the 2016 premiere of this version for women’s chorus, Lorelei brings that same unmatched skill to the recording. From the hypnotic layers of the opening “he was and she was” to the almost devoutly meditative mood of “Head, Heart,” there’s an immediate sense of having captured an entirely new way of experiencing one of Lang’s most soulful and mysterious works.
Lang composed love fail in 2012, and conceived of the work as a rumination on the timelessness of love, weaving together details from the story of Tristan and Isolde with more modern sources — specifically, the stories of contemporary author Lydia Davis. “These stories are oddly similar to the Tristan stories,” Lang writes in his liner notes to the recording. “They are also about love, honor and respect between two people, but they are much more recognizable to us.”
“The work consists of stark harmonies and unisons, and the group not only
executes these but controls the texture so that the vertical sonorities take on lives of their own...The successful eight-voice choir is the black belt of choral singing. When it is done right, it opens up a range of expressive possibilities that can be chilling. Here it is done superbly.”
TRACK LIST
1. he was and she was
2. break #1 (Clare McNamara)
3. dureth
4. a different man (Carrie Cheron)
5. the wood and the vine
6. right and wrong (Sonja Tengblad)
7. you will love me
8. forbidden subjects (Sarah Brailey)
9. as love grows stronger
10. break #2 - instrumental
11. the outing (Emily Marvosh)
12. I live in pain
13. head, heart
14. break #3 - if I have to drown
15. mild, light
“A performance that is forthright and deeply moving; unravelling in the ensemble’s wonderfully flexible approach, creating imagery that befits something of great density and import as well as something delicate and light.”