Andrew Zolinsky DAVID LANG this was written by hand

On his new album from Cantaloupe Music, this was written by hand, David Lang treats the piano alternately as a eulogizer and as a medium to commune with the departed. Pianist Andrew Zolinsky’s technique is well suited to tastefully render these finely wrought improvisatory pieces, to sound out the meditative character of Lang’s postminimalism. The range of piano articulation presented here stretches from use of the instrument as pitched percussion all the way to liquid, dulcet burbles. Piano music in the contemporary classical world often embraces jazz tropes, or world music idioms, or past stylistic genres. Lang’s piano voice sometimes recalls the phase music of Reich but is for the most part quite original in its complete metrical flexibility (or complete lack of meter in some cases, it seems), and in the way it exhaustively explores all the possibilities of a spare musical form. The tracks here are all character pieces in my opinion. There are no grand statements; on the contrary, the prevailing voice is one of personal introspection, without a hint of sentimentality.

“this was written by hand” opens with a rising white-note motif, bubbling up and echoed upon itself to create a lush texture. Simple modal recitatives sound in the piano’s upper register. Eventually a voice in the tenor range takes tentative steps toward more chromatic territory, fleshing out austere impressions of tone. The piece was the composer’s attempt to revisit the act of writing without the convenience of a computer. It certainly flaunts its agogic freedom. The succession of notes seems to fold back upon itself before having a chance to establish any kind of conventional melody, so bashful are the various voices. The overall impression is of a blinded creature, resigned to slowly feeling about in the dark to find its way. The composition, whose subject is the artistic process itself, has a cunning metatextuality in spite of its chaste tonal garb. The piano is an old soul; it predates automobiles, let alone computers. It is thus fitting that the piano should eulogize that lost time, before the banality of comfort and connectivity in the digital age. (Rob Wendt)