“It was quite brutally cold; it was snowing and dark evening fell. In this cold and this darkness, a little poor girl went into the streets with a bare head and bare feet that were red and blue from the cold; in an old apron she carried a multitude of matches, and with a bunch in her hand she perished. Lights shone from every window, and then in the street it smelled so wonderfully of roast goose; it was New Year’s Eve after all [...].”

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale brings a tragic reality into our awareness; one that in many parts of the world isn’t visible but is more topical than ever. In the early 21st century David Lang took a collection of texts and musical inspiration from Bach’s St Matthew Passion and created from them a moving choral work that illustrates the drastic tensions between poverty and hope on the one hand and between adversity and recklessness on the other.

David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion

Company of Music

directed by Johannes Hiemetsberger

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