Tell Me Everything (1994)

This small work (duration ca. 8 minutes) reveals a characteristic peculiar to Wolfe’s style, namely, directness of expression as well as tangible artistic sincerity. The composer has made use of a small orchestral ensemble (single winds, double percussion, harp, piano and a small string section), at the same time emphasizing exploitation of the potential of heterogeneity in colors and rhythms. In Tell Me Everything, there appear complex metrical divisions, frequently combined with conventional ones: 9/16, 2/4, 3/4, 2/4, 4/4, 3/4, 5/4. The great density of changes brings to mind Stravinsky's early works; equally high is the level of the performance problems. Superficially, the music to Tell Me Everything remains in the circle of funk style, but its final form exceeds the bounds of that style. It is a congenial synthesis of Bartókian roughness and a rock music character which, according to Wolfe herself, resembles the tension, full of quite physical effort, of a stuttering person who wants at all costs to say something extraordinarily essential about which he or she thinks constantly.

[Maciej Jabłoński]