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MUSIC
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MUSIC REVIEW
Visiting the Alps, With Liszt and Goats By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
APRIL 28, 2014
The titles of David Lang’s compositions are written in lowercase. There’s a self-effacing quality to his work as composer in residence at Carnegie Hall this season, too; among the six concerts he is presenting at Zankel Hall under the title “collected stories,” only one work is by him. But when it comes to the music of composers he has studied, admired, mentored or championed, it’s a different story: Here Mr. Lang’s interests run wide and include the grandiose and the quirky, the sidesplittingly funny and the extremes of virtuosic self-indulgence. On Saturday evening the brilliant Canadian pianist Louis Lortie gave a marathon performance of Liszt’s complete “Années de Pèlerinage,” which represented the travel genre in Mr. Lang’s “collected stories.” On Sunday evening the outstanding new-music ensemble Alarm Will Sound headlined the program “(post)folk,” the highlight of which was Richard Ayres’s playful and hilarious “No. 42 In the Alps.” The Alps provide the starting point for Liszt’s three-book collection of virtuosic piano pieces assembled and edited over the course of nearly 50 years and based (loosely) on his travels through Switzerland and Italy. In his program notes, Mr. Lang makes a moving case for reading them as autobiography, with the third book chronicling Liszt’s decline in confidence, health and pianistic ability. While Mr. Lortie’s three-hour performance was impressive and shot through with sonic marvels, I was