Impatience (2005)

The suggestive titles characteristic of Wolfe normally hit the nail on the head as far as the composition’s atmosphere is concerned. Impatience is a work overflowing with nervous, impatient narrative, and its clear, almost angular contours are emphasized by the extreme registers of the instruments. Though there are only 18 performers, the work not infrequently sounds quite symphonic, which is the effect of predominantly dense textures, as well as the consistent pulse and edgy rhythmic language characteristic of the composer’s style. This nearly 40-minute work can be considered as an image, symptomatic of the beginning of the 21st century, of a surrounding reality whose intensity translates into a mass of emotions and internal jitters. The tangle of thoughts present here turns out to be an almost natural environment in which Wolfe is as at home as a fish in the water. ‘I like density,’ she says. But in that density, the elements are simple and clear, which relates to the Minimalist aesthetic – a clarity. There is, thus, a complexity far from gibberish or satiation – one more qualitative than quantitative.

[Maciej Jabłoński]