A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
Julia Wolfe is the composer of "Anthracite Fields," an hour-long oratorio about Pennsylvania coal miners at the turn of the 20th century. The work, which took home the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for music, blends music with anthropological studies to create a poetic history — both of the miners' way of life and their broader impact on the world.
After Wolfe was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, she took a full year simply to research the piece. She traveled to coal mining towns to pore over historical documents and to conduct interviews with retired miners and their children. During the interviews she "made a very clear effort" to communicate that she also came from a small town in Pennsylvania. As Wolfe told The Frame:
I did not want to be this city slicker. And in the end we felt this connection. There was a beautiful moment when two of the people I interviewed came to Philadelphia to hear the premiere. They were very moved by it. They understood what I was doing and it was very gratifying to know that it spoke to them. There was some sense they had that this was remembering a life they had lived, and that was important to them.
Each movement of "Anthracite Fields" examines a different aspect of the miners' stories — from fatal accidents, to child laborers known as "breaker boys," to the modern-day commodities that rely on coal power but which the average American might take for granted.
Along with addressing historical and social issues, Wolfe was also wanted to create a type of sonic painting of the mines. She began her conversation with The Frame's John Horn by explaining this process.
In a certain sense I think what I aim to do is capture the sound that represents something visual — being very deep down in the ground in complete darkness. Actually, on some of the tours, the tour guides would say: "Do you want to see how dark it can really be?" And they'd turn off the exit lights and it's completely dark.
Well, what does that image sound like to me? The double bass is playing the lowest open string, which is an amazing, rich, reedy sound. And Mark Stewart on the electric guitar is using a kitchen whisk. He takes the handle and he's actually scrubbing the electric guitar, also in a low register, with a lot of reverb. So you get this really wooly kind of sound. You get this sense of depth and resonance.
You're in a deep, dark place.
You're in a deep, dark place, sonically and visually.
Somebody might go to Tiffany's to look at a diamond, but you go to the diamond mine. You look at the human price that is paid for creating that product, and you do that by looking at oral histories, texts, coal advertisements. You become almost an anthropologist of what coal miners went through.
Yeah, and I'm really interested in these kinds of histories. I went to college thinking I was going to study social sciences. I took classes on American labor history. Accidentally I wound up in a music class and that was it. But it's a kind of return to this interest I've always had. And I'm particularly interested in looking at history through other lenses than, say, the mainstream textbook.
You're making an argument not to attend music conservatory, to actually get a broad liberal arts education. Because the things that you studied ended up being hugely influential in the compositions that you wrote.
Well oddly enough, yeah. And I think that because of my early interests in labor history, but also early creative work with texts and writing — writing with words — I certainly think extra-musically. That exposure to interesting thinkers and interesting courses was a great experience. It's in the music. I think everything that an artist does or lives comes into the music, whether it's perceivable or not. It's part of the creative process.
I want to talk about the text of "Anthracite Fields." In the first movement, the chorus recites a list of names that were casualties in a mining accident. It sounds like a requiem and a piece of journalism. You've gone back to find out who these people were and what happened to them. Do all of these things shape the approach that you have in writing what is clearly a nontraditional libretto?
Yes! They do. It was really fascinating to come across this list of names, the Pennsylvania Index of Mining Accidents. I thought, Oh my God, it's so long. I couldn't possibly list all the names. So I started to whittle it down to the [victims named John] with one-syllable last names. And later in the piece you can very clearly hear the ethnicity in the names. When I coached the choirs in singing it, I said, "It's a list of names, it's just a list. But it's someone's father, someone's brother, someone's uncle." So there's a kind of passionate, emphatic quality to the way I've thought about it.
"Anthracite Fields" isn't the first time you've written about labor history. Your 2010 piece, "Steel Hammer," is about the folk legend of John Henry, who was a steel driver for the railroads. Building railroads and mining for coal seem a world away from composing music. I'm wondering if you relate to these themes politically, or maybe in a more spiritual way — that what people are doing is joining a collaborative effort to create something, and a lot of music composition and performance is about that, too.
Oh, absolutely. And also, in a certain sense, work is work. I think I have a quite luxurious existence because I'm not underground. But that said, we're all laborers, and it was really fascinating to connect to the people in this anthracite coal region. I made a very clear effort to let them know I'm from this small town in Pennsylvania, even though I'm a New Yorker!
I also wonder if you've thought about how it can function as a piece of advocacy. Do you think an oratorio like yours can be an agent of awareness or political change?
I do. And this is a very interesting subject because it's complex. I think one of the things I wanted to reveal or focus on is that it's not so black-and-white. There are very clear issues that are important to me, like child labor, or even compensation for any labor. At the same time, we are a part of this conversation. I wanted to make it so that it's not just a little history about those people over there. It's actually all of us who live in comfort and use energy. In the end I felt like I had to look at that as well, just by the last movement — again, it's another list. But it's a list of all the things that we do every day that use energy.
"Anthracite Fields" will receive a one-night-only performance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Los Angeles Master Chorale on March 6 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.