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673. What Is Money?
Brief
David Lang’s oratorio wealth of nations — the subject of Freakonomics Radio episode 673 (aired 2026-05-01, hosted by Stephen Dubner) — is a deliberate musical engagement with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations that also stitches together American and literary counterpoints (Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Edith Wharton, Eugene V. Debs). Lang describes his compositional throughline as the human network behind exchange: trade connects people, and money functions as a token representing labor. He singled out Smith’s long example about the woolen coat — the shepherd, spinner, weaver, ships and rope-makers that jointly produce a coat — and set that text to music to make the hidden labor audible. Lang retained movement names and borrowed texts (Movement 16 “The True Statesman,” Movement 17 with Debs), but also added original material (Movement 13 “enough”) to give voice to people omitted from Smith’s 18th‑century assumptions.
The episode traces Lang’s practical and aesthetic life: a 2008 Pulitzer laureate who teaches at Yale, co‑founder of Bang on a Can, a former chemistry student at Stanford, and an erstwhile punk scene participant. He composes by singing to himself and transcribes in Encore, favors lowercase titles as a pressure‑relief affectation, and sees classical music as “just music” that should reach broader publics. Musically, wealth of nations uses plain‑song textures, frequent unison chorus writing, and orchestrations that often mirror choral lines; Dubner and Lang note moments intended to feel hypnotic, cathartic and morally pointed. Lang was candid about nerves before rehearsals — the first choral run was a piano session with 49 singers and conductor Malcolm J. Maryweather at Lincoln Center — and the subsequent full rehearsals with Gustavo Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic revealed quick interpretive decisions (e.g., Dudamel’s forte subito call). Lang frames the work as non‑partisan moral inquiry: he removed explicit socialist advocacy from Debs’ text but kept its urgency, aiming to illuminate inequality and the moral structures underpinning commerce. He expects premieres to be iterative — the New York performance is a stage in a living score that he anticipates revising across future performances (including an Aspen Music Festival run).
Why it matters
Episode 673 (published 2026-05-01) features composer David Lang explaining his new oratorio wealth of nations, a setting that repurposes Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations alongside texts from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Edith Wharton, and a courtroom speech by Eugene V. Debs (Movements referenced include Movement 16 “The True Statesman” and Movement 17 “Statement to the Court”).
Key details
- David Lang (Pulitzer Prize winner, 2008, for The Little Match Girl Passion; Yale composition faculty; co‑founder of Bang on a Can) says his central musical theme is that money is a token connecting people through trade — “money doesn’t really have any value… it represents the amount of labor” — and he set Adam Smith’s woolen‑coat passage to music to dramatize global labor networks.
- Lang described his compositional process: he composes by singing ideas to himself, not at the piano, writes in the notation program Encore (an older tool he preserves to avoid autocorrect), and intentionally titles works in lowercase (e.g., wealth of nations) as an affectation to reduce pressure from tradition.
- Rehearsal details: the New York Philharmonic staged the world premiere at Lincoln Center with Gustavo Dudamel conducting; the first vocal rehearsal (piano only) involved the Philharmonic chorus (49 singers) under conductor Malcolm J. Maryweather, and Lang attended later rehearsals where Dudamel made interpretive calls (example: orchestra to play forte subito at a cue).
- Lang framed wealth of nations politically as part of conversation about commerce and morality but not as partisan advocacy — he removed explicit socialist prescriptions from Debs’ text and says he’s a “pretty moderate political person,” aiming primarily to illuminate inequality and moral questions about labor and trade.
- Musical characteristics: Lang frequently uses plain‑song/chant textures, unison chorus writing (often aligned with orchestra), hypnotic repetition and moments intended to be both lacerating and comforting; he intended Movement 13 “enough” as an original, set‑aside voice for people omitted from Smith’s examples.