CD: David Lang, 'note to a friend'

Artists: David Lang, composer / Theo bleckmann, attacca quartet

Released on Cantaloupe Records, 2026

This is David Lang's second opera with the theme of suicide (the first being 'the loser') is based on Japanese author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's famous letter to a fellow author, explaining and justifying his decision to kill himself. Rather than put himself into the mind Akutagawa – an impossible task – he wrote a piece sung by an invented character that was based on what he felt and understood, after reading the letter. He called this character ‘the dead man’.

The cover art uses actual photographs of Akutagawa.