Steel Hammer

Steel Hammer is a 2009 composition for three sopranos and chamber ensemble by the American composer Julia Wolfe. It was first performed on November 21, 2009, at Zankel Hall by the contemporary classical music groups Bang on a Can and Trio Mediæval. The piece is based on the ballad of the African-American tall tale John Henry. The composition was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Composition.
The text of the piece is drawn from over 200 versions of the John Henry folklore. Wolfe described her sources in the score program notes, writing:
Structure.
The piece has a duration of 79 minutes and is composed in nine movements:
Instrumentation.
The work is scored for an ensemble comprising three sopranos, clarinet, percussion, guitar, piano, cello, and double bass.
Reception.
Reviewing the world premiere, of "The Washington Post" praised the piece as "an astonishingly compelling amalgam" of music and noise. Daniel Stephen Johnson of WQXR-FM said, "At its best, the music of Julia Wolfe is totally relentless, like a steam-powered drill boring a great hole right through the hard heart of a mountain." He added, "A bit like "The Little Match Girl Passion" of fellow Bang on a Can composer David Lang, this is a passion play for a sort of ordinary Christ figure, and their pure, exquisitely shaped sound lends Wolfe's work not a suitable elegiac tone, but the laserlike intensity demanded by her music's most luminous moments." Allan Kozinn of "The New York Times" lauded Wolfe's mixture of musical styles and wrote: