Julia Wolfe: Fire in My Mouth cover

Julia Wolfe: Fire in My Mouth

Composer
Released

A vivid choral rendering of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in which 146 immigrant women died in a New York sweatshop accident.  Eschewing linear narrative, composer Julia Wolfe depicts this pivot point in American labor history primarily through the accumulation of fragmentary and repeated vocal lines. Where her Minimalist forbears used this kind of repetition for conceptual explorations in perception, consciousness, and spirituality, Wolfe instead uses it to build kinetic energy and dramatic tension.  The techniques bring the listener to the scene of the crime, nowhere more searingly than in the third movement, “Protest.”

Sean Wood

Recommended by

Suggestions
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3; Piano Sonatas, Op. 111 & Moonlight cover

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3; Piano Sonatas, Op. 111 & Moonlight

Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, Fazil Say, Gianandrea Noseda
Perpetual Night cover

Perpetual Night

Ensemble Correspondances, Lucile Richardot, Sébastien Daucé
Coup Fatal cover

Coup Fatal

Rodriguez Vangama, Fabrizio Cassol, Serge Kakudji
Bach: St. Matthew Passion cover

Bach: St. Matthew Passion

Academy of Ancient Music
Handel: Lotario cover

Handel: Lotario

Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco