Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields
Cantaloupe Music

Bang on a Can co-founder and co-artistic director Julia Wolfe follows her lauded Steel Hammer with another project rooted in the story of the American worker, Anthracite Fields. Performed by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street (conducted by Julian Wachner) and the Bang on a Can All-Stars (cellist Ashley Bathgate, bassist Robert Black, pianist Vicky Chow, clarinetist Ken Thomson, drummer/percussionist David Cossin, guitarist Mark Stewart), the five-part oratorio, which brought Wolfe the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music, is grounded in the songs and stories of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century miners who toiled in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region.

Wolfe's one of the leading composers of the post-minimalist generation, artists schooled in the traditions of minimalism who've advanced beyond its restrictive practices by integrating it with rock, jazz, and electronica. In fact, no trace of Glass or Reich is present in Anthracite Fields; as far as style and sensibility are concerned, it's telling that the jagged interjections that repeatedly shatter the brooding pedal-point drone in “Foundation” evoke Louis Andriessen more than anyone else. If any trace of minimalism is present, it arises during the beautiful closing section of “Appliances,” which sounds vaguely like an inversion of the opening to John Adams' Nixon in China. Wolfe's music is often characterized by strong physicality and rhythmic drive, and such qualities obviously lend themselves well to the topic at hand.

She developed the text using multiple sources, among them oral histories, speeches, rhymes, and historical documents, the intent being to honour the lives of people who, working in often dangerous conditions, contributed to the building of a nation; more than a history lesson, the text also draws a firm connecting line from the past to the present in “Appliances.” Such historical and sociological aspects never come across as heavy-handed, however, when the musical content, often raw and earthy, is so rich in imagination and invention.

In the opening “Foundation,” part of the arresting sound design involves the sober vocal recitation of names, those with the first name John and a one-syllable surname in this case, that function as a microcosm of the many workers injured or killed in mining accidents. But in contrast to the ponderousness of that epic opener, the second, “Breaker Boys,” exudes a more playful quality in its buoyant blend of tick-tock rhythms and sing-song rhymes; here and elsewhere, Wolfe styles her writing to match the topic at hand, in this case one focusing on young boys tasked with separating coal from rocks. In another surprise, “Speech,” drawing on the words of labor leader John L. Lewis, features an impassioned lead vocal by guitarist Mark Stewart as opposed to one of the choir members.

January 2016