Pulitzer

Congratulations to David Lang, composer of The Little Match Girl Passion, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for music. The last time a choral work won this prize is 1987, as far as I can tell, although a work for voice and orchestra won in 1996.

The work is modeled on Bach's St. Matthew Passion with interpolated arias and choruses within the story, based on Hans Christian Andersen's story — let's hear it for the public domain! — and sets the match girl as a kind of Christian allegory; the composer says, "There is no Bach in my piece and there is no Jesus—rather the suffering of the Little Match Girl has been substituted for Jesus's, elevating (I hope) her sorrow to a higher plane."

The work, for SATB chorus singing and playing percussion instruments, was premiered in October by Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices. Although I haven't been able to find a description of this composition's style, Lang seems to write generally post-minimalist music, like John Adams, a melange of rock and classical.