“short fall,” from thorn
Album Overview:
Release date: May 12, 2017
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Duration: 36:52
Performers for “short fall”: David Lang, Molly Barth, Matt Albert, Jeffrey Zeigler, and David Riley
1. thorn
2. lend/lease
3. short fall
4. involuntary
5. vent
6. burn notice
7. frag
thorn is flutist and eighth blackbird founding member Molly Barth's collection of short works by David Lang, and has been described as "...a varied yet consistent overview of Lang’s chamber music activities, a vital part of his output that deserves continued attention even as he moves into larger forms and more expansive concepts. The performances, by Barth and a small host of excellent associates (including fellow former blackbird Matt Albert on violin), strike just the right balance between nervous tension and technical security." (Steve Smith, The Log Journal)
About the title piece, David Lang writes: "My first idea for thorn was to embed a single spike somewhere in the middle of a long, slow, quiet melody. I thought that the listener would then spend the first part of the piece in fear and the second part in shock, and this would change the ways that the tune would be perceived. The problem was that the spike turned out to be the most interesting part of the piece, and, ultimately, I couldn’t resist the temptation to add many, many more of them."