David Lang's Love Fail is a work for small choir that may be performed either with staging or as a concert piece. The texts describe, as promised, a failed love affair, using texts drawn from the legend of Tristan and Isolde , and from modern poetry. The work was written in 2012 for the vocal group Anonymous 4 and amplified slightly for women's chorus in 2015; in the latter form, it was premiered by the Lorelei Ensemble, which has recorded it here. Thus the group has had some time with the piece, and it shows. The work ...
Read More
David Lang's Love Fail is a work for small choir that may be performed either with staging or as a concert piece. The texts describe, as promised, a failed love affair, using texts drawn from the legend of Tristan and Isolde , and from modern poetry. The work was written in 2012 for the vocal group Anonymous 4 and amplified slightly for women's chorus in 2015; in the latter form, it was premiered by the Lorelei Ensemble, which has recorded it here. Thus the group has had some time with the piece, and it shows. 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. Sample the haunting "Three years to the day..." that opens the second section. 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. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
Read Less