Stephen Dubner

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.

We recently made a three-part series about an almost 300-year-old oratorio that still has a grip on a lot of people today, Handel's Messiah.

During our reporting, we spent some time with the New York Philharmonic as they rehearsed and performed Messiah.

One day, our producer Zach Lipinski heard about a future Philharmonic oratorio called The Wealth of Nations.

You may recognize that title.

It is a book published in 1776 by the Scotsman Adam Smith, who is widely seen as the father of modern economics.

And some people consider The Wealth of Nations a sacred text of capitalism.

This new Wealth of Nations oratorio was apparently inspired by Messiah, a musical story using artfully rearranged text from historical sources.

Here is the weird thing.

We once made a three-part series about Adam Smith, too.

So hearing about an Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Messiah mashup felt like one of those moments where your AI feeds you something a little too spot on.

This would be a world premiere conducted by the Venezuelan-born superstar Gustavo Dudamel, and the composer was named David Lang.

Maybe you have heard of David Lang, but I hadn't.

So I asked my home pod to play some David Lang.

And here's what came out.

The lyrics are drawn from Song of Songs, a book of love poems in the Hebrew Bible.

This music mesmerized me.

I wanted to know more about the person who could write something like that.

Turns out that David Lang in the small world of contemporary classical music is a big deal.

He has won a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy.