note to a friend

Is it possible to write about one’s own suicide? That is precisely what Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa did in his Memorandum for an Old Friend before taking his life in 1927. With his stories, Akutagawa also inspired Akira Kurosawa in creating a film classic such as Rashomon. “We are human animals, and therefore, just like animals, we fear death. The so-called will to live is nothing more than another way of describing the animal instinct. I am among the human animals, and in noticing my aversion to food and to women, I cannot but conclude that I have gradually lost my animal instinct. I now live in a world made of sick nerves, a world as thin as ice,” the author writes. David Lang’s 2023 work note to a friend is based on this Memorandum, though the libretto deliberately distances itself by removing the biographical element. For his monologue with string quartet, the American composer, one of today’s leading contemporary voices and a Pulitzer Prize winner, imagines instead a fictional character. The “dead man” seeks peace, and believes he has found it. But what about us, asks David Lang: “Should we trust him and let ourselves be seduced by his serenity? Or rather be shocked, disgusted, or saddened? He is not afraid of death - are we?”