David Lang

And that, again, is David Lang.

It actually really helped me writing the piece.

Yeah, I wrote that piece a long time ago, and it's slightly cheating to stick old pieces into new pieces.

I did have this debate after with family and friends.

Oh, really?

I definitely was worried that people who knew that piece might think that it was a little bit of cheating.

But I'm in my studio thinking my own thoughts, and this piece really is about me trying to figure out what I think and what I believe.

And so it automatically is on some level in dialogue with everything else I've ever thought.

and all the other music that I've already written.

So it didn't seem that out of place to me.

The idea of a finished piece is a more recent idea in music history, that something is done and we treasure it.

Composers were very practical.

Yeah, basically.

I would like to have change happen peaceably.

That would be really great.

What kind of change?

Oh, I don't know.

I'm not a politician, so I don't want to even go there.

What I tried to do in this piece was to make a piece where I wouldn't be telling you that there's one right way to answer that question.

You almost got me to, you almost tricked me into saying what the right answer is.