My Beautiful Scream

Last updated April 26, 2019

My Beautiful Scream is a concerto for amplified string quartet and orchestra by the American composer Julia Wolfe. The work was jointly commissioned by Radio France, the Basel Sinfonietta, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic for the Kronos Quartet. It was first performed on February 6, 2004 at the Festival Presence in Paris by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Kronos Quartet.^[1]

A concerto is a musical composition generally composed of three movements, in which, usually, one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It is accepted that its characteristics and definition have changed over time. In the 17th century, sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos, as reflected by J. S. Bach's usage of the title "concerto" for many of the works that we know as cantatas.

A string quartet refers to (a) a musical ensemble consisting of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist – or (b) a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music, with most major composers, from the mid 18th century onwards, writing string quartets.

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and percussion instruments such as the timpani, bass drum, triangle, snare drum and cymbals, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Composition

My Beautiful Scream is composed in one continuous movement and has a duration of roughly 25 minutes.^[1]

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

Inspiration

Wolfe composed the piece shortly after the September 11 attacks near Wolfe's home in Manhattan. She commented on the effects of this experience in the score program note, writing:

The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.

Manhattan, often referred to locally as the City, is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City and its economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. The borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers; several small adjacent islands; and Marble Hill, a small neighborhood now on the U.S. mainland, physically connected to the Bronx and separated from the rest of Manhattan by the Harlem River. Manhattan Island is divided into three informally bounded components, each aligned with the borough's long axis: Lower, Midtown, and Upper Manhattan.

At night I would have this strange sensation that I was going to die. In general my life was very beautiful – my kids were at ages that were particularly magical. So it was this strange existence of living in beauty and having the sensation of a long drawn out internal scream.

Wolfe added:

The piece for the Kronos Quartet and orchestra is in a way a nonconcerto for string quartet. The quartet begins quiet, personal, and fine. The orchestra is more violent, menacing, and strident. But the quartet, which is amplified, gradually emerges to ride above the orchestra in a loud and emotional frenzy. The overall arch is a scream, in slow motion, beginning with the breath that one takes and reaching out to the extremity of the human cry. I have never taken the arch of a scream as a "form" before. Screams may be present in my music, but they happen suddenly without warning, frenetic and hyper. My Beautiful Scream demanded a more gradual unfolding – the unraveling of my own slow motion scream.^[1]

Instrumentation

The work is scored for an amplified string quartet and an orchestra comprising two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, four percussionists, harp, piano, electric bass guitar, and strings.^[1]

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Oboes belong to the classification of double reed woodwind instruments. Oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When the word oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais, or oboe d'amore

Reception

Allan Kozinn of The New York Times praised the composition, writing, "Ms. Wolfe composed My Beautiful Scream as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks, but instead of writing a memorial work or a brooding philosophical piece, she went with pure gut instinct: her piece is an intensely stylized, intricately detailed, elongated slow- motion scream." He added, "The Kronos and the Brooklyn players rendered the 25-minute work with a patient intensity that brought out its searing, elemental pain, yet kept that pain at a distance, rendering it observable and affecting rather than oppressive."^[2] Janos Gereben of the San Francisco Classical Voice was also impressed by the piece, writing:

Allan Kozinn is an American journalist, music critic, and teacher.

<i>The New York Times</i> Daily broadsheet newspaper based in New York City

The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 127 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U.S.

The "Rheingold"-like slow, deep, suspenseful pedal-point opening made the audience sit up and pay attention. The quiet, "atmospheric" background is then interrupted by startling unison exclamations, but the actual scream is a long way off. In the interim, there are some massive insect sounds alternating with hushed passages, only brief use of ostinato reminiscent of Philip Glass (Kronos violinists David Harrington and, especially, John Sherba working their hearts out), and a fine balance, favoring the discreetly amplified quartet.^[3]

Michael Upchurch of The Seattle Times called it "extraordinary" and "elemental in its violence, yet masterfully structured." Upchurch further remarked, "Scream pits a lightly amplified string quartet against a full orchestra. A gradually intensifying veil of string sound is violated by brutal orchestral intrusions. Doppler-effect distortions in the brass add to the mounting chaos. When the whole edifice collapses, the frenzied quartet finds itself flailing against seething and surging batteries of percussion."^[4]

The Seattle Times is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region.

The Doppler effect is the change in frequency or wavelength of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who described the phenomenon in 1842.

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References

1 2 3 4 Wolfe, Julia. My Beautiful Scream (2003). G. Schirmer Inc. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
↑ Kozinn, Allan (April 24, 2007). "Music of the Spheres and the Pain of Earthly Matters". The New York Times . Retrieved August 3, 2015.
↑ Gereben, Janos (August 6, 2004). "Festival Review: Contemporary Pleasantries". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
↑ Upchurch, Michael (July 1, 2016). "Seattle Symphony strikes somber note with pairing of '4'33,' 'My Beautiful Scream'". The Seattle Times . Retrieved August 3, 2015.

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[Score-1] 1 2 3 4 Wolfe, Julia. My Beautiful Scream (2003). G. Schirmer Inc. Retrieved August 3, 2015.

[2] Kozinn, Allan (April 24, 2007). "Music of the Spheres and the Pain of Earthly Matters". The New York Times . Retrieved August 3, 2015.

[3] Gereben, Janos (August 6, 2004). "Festival Review: Contemporary Pleasantries". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved August 3, 2015.

[4] Upchurch, Michael (July 1, 2016). "Seattle Symphony strikes somber note with pairing of '4'33,' 'My Beautiful Scream'". The Seattle Times . Retrieved August 3, 2015.