background
Multiple award-winning composer David Lang (*1957) is a lecturer in Music Composition at the Yale School of Music, composes for film and television and has received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his music for Paolo Sorrentino’s film YOUTH, among others. He is also known as co-founder and artistic director of New York’s Bang on a Can music festival.
when is it time for me to go is part of the little girl match passion, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 story, The Girl with the Sulphur Stick. David Lang was influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (1727) and won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2008 with this work.
David Lang on the little girl match passion:
What attracted me to The girl with the sulphur sticks is that the strength of the story lies not in its plot, but in the fact that all parts of it – the horror and the beauty – are constantly imbued with their opposites. The girl’s bitter present is connected to the sweetness of her past memories; her poverty is always infused with her hope. There is a kind of naïve balance between suffering and hope …. My piece is called the little girl match passion and it places Hans Christian Andersen’s story in the mold of Bach’s Matthew Passion, by alternating Andersen’s narration with my versions of audience reactions and characters from Bach’s Passion.
when is it time for me to go was performed by Cappella Amsterdam led by conductor Daniel Reuss in the five-star award-winning concert series The Grand Inquisitor. At the request of Cappella Amsterdam, the concert was filmed by production company MILLK in De Vereeniging, Nijmegen. The audio is recorded by A-A-AUDIO.
lyrics
When it is time for me to go
Don’t go from me
When it is time for me to leave
Don’t leave me
When it is time for me to die
Stay with me
When I am most scared
Stay with me
performers
Cappella Amsterdam
Daniel Reuss conductor
Roeland Fernhout actor
