© Katharina Koutnik / Promo
Archive: The Little Match Girl
Krems Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche
Sorrow and Hope
David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion (2007)
Sophie Reyer: new text commissioned by Imago Dei
It is the story of a little girl who tries to escape the coldness of the world by lighting the matches she was supposed to sell in order to warm herself a bit with this light of hope.
Hans Christian Andersen’s touching fairy tale inspired the American composer David Lang to write music that goes straight to the heart, and already thrilled audiences and critics alike at its world premiere in 2007. At last year’s Imago Dei Festival, listeners were treated to an excerpt from “The Little Match Girl Passion” at one of the morning concerts. The reactions were overwhelming. In 2023, this “secular passion”, whose second source of inspiration is Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion”, is on the programme for the evening of Good Friday. Lang’s short piece (just under 40 minutes) is preceded by a reading of a new fairy tale text by Austrian writer Sophie Reyer, which builds upon the balance between suffering and hope.
In cooperation with the International Baroque Festival, Melk Abbey.
Literary work commissioned by the Imago Dei Festival with the support of the Club Festivalförderung.
