Composed: 2002

Los Angeles native David Lang holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of Iowa, and he received his doctorate from the Yale School of Music in 1989. As a performer, Lang is best known as the co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s Bang on a Can music festival. (For a profile of Lang, please see page P2.)

Lang composed the so-called laws of nature in 2002 on a commission from So Percussion, which gave the premiere performance in New York City that year. (Steven Schick and members of red fish blue fish performed it on a Green Umbrella concert here in May 2005.) The composer has provided the following note:

"I went to college to study science. I was expected to become a doctor, or at the very least a medical researcher, and I spent much of my undergraduate years studying math and chemistry and physics, hanging out with future scientists, going to their parties, sharing their apartments, eavesdropping on their conversations. I remember a particularly heated discussion about a quote from Wittgenstein: “At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanation of natural phenomena.” This quote rankled all us future scientists, as it implied that science can’t explain the universe but can only offer mere descriptions of things observed. Over the years it occurred to me that this could be rephrased as a musical problem."

"Because music is made of proportions and numbers and formulas and patterns, I always wonder what these numbers actually mean. Do the numbers themselves generate a certain structure, creating the context and the meaning and the form, or are they just the incidental byproducts of other, deeper, more mysterious processes? My piece the so-called laws of nature tries to explore the ‘meaning’ of various processes and formulas. The individual parts are virtually identical – the percussionists play identical patterns throughout, playing unison rhythms on subtly different instruments. Most of these instruments the performers are required to build themselves. Some of the patterns between the players are displaced in time. Some are on instruments that have a kind of incoherence built into their sound. Does the music come out of the patterns or in spite of them? I am not sure which, but I know that this piece is as close to becoming a scientist as I will ever get."