Beautiful Death by Evan Williams
Sinfonietta VivazzAs Debút performance in the Tonhalle Düsseldorf
Live performance as part of the "Neuland" Concert Series.
June 11, 2021
Evan Williams - Beautiful Death
“Now this will be a
BEAUTIFUL DEATH.
I’m jumping out the window.
I’m letting everything go.”
-Kanye West, Power
On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale committed suicide by jumping off the Empire State Building. Not
much is known about the circumstances of 23-year-old’s death, besides the note she left behind, reading, in part, “He is much better off without me...” and an iconic photograph taken by Robert Wiles which appeared in LIFE magazine. The photograph, known as “The Most Beautiful Suicide,” depicts McHale’s body laying in the caved-in roof of a limousine, looking almost peaceful as she clutches her pearl necklace. Beautiful Death is a critique on the rhetorical trope of suicide, especially self-immolation, of a female for the sake of lost love. This motif is found in a number of works of art and fiction, including Götterdämmerung, Romeo and Juliet, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Dido and Aeneas. Beautiful Death takes its motivic material from the famous aria “When I am laid in Earth,” from, and is inspired by, both the apparent beauty that male writers and artists have found in this trope, and the ultimate futility of the action.
Instrumentation:
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Violoncello
Contrabass
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet
Bassoon