Sometimes you find the most intriguing things in the most unexpected places. Such was the case when I attended the NYU Symphony Orchestra concert on October 19^th. Though I went to hear Beethoven’s 3^rd Symphony, Julia Wolfe’s Vermeer Room was the piece I remembered. Ms. Wolfe, a professor of composition here at NYU, was inspired by Vermeer’s painting of a sleeping girl to create this turbulent work. Wolfe’s summary in the program explained that when she thought of the girl sleeping she imagined uneasy dreams. The piece fit that description exactly. Prominent horns played with Mahlerian grandeur against shrieking violins and off beat, insistent mallet percussion. There was drama and conflict as well as moments of quiet, building and stopping, at times disorienting the listener like a bad dream. What was most impressive about the piece was that, as opposed to most modern composition, I understood the author’s conception of the piece. The piece was new without resorting to randomness or mere novelty.

This favorable chance introduction inspired me to go see the premier of Wolfe’s newest piece, Steel Hammers at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall November 21^st. The piece was a retelling of the American myth of John Henry, known for using his steel hammers to beat a steam machine in a race. But unlike many composers before her, Ms. Wolfe did more than just retell a legend-she chose to look at the legacy of legends themselves through the lens of this particular one.

The piece called for piano, clarinet, cello, bass, guitar/banjo/mountain dulcimer, and quite an assortment of percussion (including performers’ feet and hands) as well as the wonderful Trio Mediaeval, three female vocalists from Scandinavia. The piece was organized into several movements that each told a part of the legend. The first movement was a setting of the words “Some say he’s from”, which were broken down and put back together in a round of the three vocalists. The instrumentalists joined in at the end with percussion that sounded like a train moving on a track, a hint of the clash to come.

The next movement, The States, was a list of (as Ms. Wolfe explained in the talk beforehand) all the places that different versions of the story said John Henry was from, which were again layered by the vocalists over and over such that the meaning of the words themselves was almost obscured. One got a sense of how many different versions of the story exist and have been told. Ms. Wolfe used lyrics of conflicting description throughout the piece to narrate the narration of the legend. The three vocalists embodied the hundred different narrators of these stories, speaking with different musical voices to lend a rich diversity of sound to the entire piece. By the end, I felt as if I had heard not a story, but the legend of John Henry itself.

The instrumental accompaniment to the piece also added to the feeling of many stories being communicated at once. The background was constantly shifting, as the mood changed from tender to cacophonous, often within the same movement. However, a percussive take on the instruments as well as repeated melodic motifs gave cohesion to the piece. The clarinet and vocal trio provided the melodic and harmonic material, while the cello, bass, and guitar lines, in combination with prepared piano and an assortment of drums and mallets, created rhythm accompaniment and drove the piece forward.

Though I felt the piece was rather lengthy, the ingenuity of its conception and the lovely presentation it was given were quite impressive. Julia Wolfe’s ability to draw on a broad range of influences to create and communicate her visions and concepts was a refreshing experience at both concerts I attended.