Track List

1. come, daughter

2. penance and remorse

3. dearest heart

4. in an old apron

5. it was terribly cold

6. lights were shining

7. patience, patience!

8. ah! perhaps

9. have mercy, my god

10. she lighted another match

11. from the sixth hour

12. she again rubbed a match

13. when it is time for me to go

14. in the dawn of morning

15. we sit and cry

16. for love is strong

17. I lie

18. evening morning day

19. again (after ecclesiastes)

2010 Grammy Awards Winner

Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall especially for Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Setting Hans Christian Andersen's fable in the format of Bach's St Matthew Passion, Lang elevates the suffering of the little match girl with his poignant, evocative music. Lang's music makes a big impact with small forces. The piece is scored for only four voices and a few percussion instruments, played by the singers. They sing the sad story of a little girl who freezes to death selling matches on the street during a cold winter's night. In notes Lang wrote to accompany the Carnegie Hall premiere last October, he says he was drawn to Andersen's story because of how opposite aspects of the plot played off each other. "The girl's bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her past memories," Lang says. "Her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There's a kind of naïve equilibrium between suffering and hope." Lang was also intrigued by the religious allegory he saw beneath the surface of the story, and he found inspiration in the music of his favorite composer, J.S. Bach.