20 Watts

Sufjan Stevens' The BQE

WE GIVE IT: 17/20 Watts

Whether you choose to acknowledge Sufjan Stevens’ The BQE as part of his Fifty States Project or not is up to you. Regardless, you can’t deny how well the instrumental collection — and Stevens’ first symphony — captures the aesthetic of one of New York City’s most notable thoroughfares.

In fact, as adventurous as Stevens has been throughout his career, this project may well end up being the folk multi-instrumentalist’s masterpiece as an artist. Not only is The BQE its own album — complete with a full 36-piece orchestra — it’s also a film, a booklet and a Viewmaster reel. The entire project, written and directed by Stevens himself, was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for its 2007 Next Wave Festival; both the film footage and the audio recording date from that performance.

The musical collection as a whole flows freely from the haphazard to the triumphant and back again. Even without the visual accompaniment, it’s easy to see the images the score has in mind: Like the real-life Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the album moves in a rush of energy and excitement, and the lulls in the action are few and far between. Piano interludes, extravagant brass swells and forlorn woodwinds ebb and flow just as the traffic does.

Stevens is already renowned as one of his generation’s most talented and experimental artists. This sterling effort simply solidifies that label with a classical orchestral arrangement, the likes of which nobody’s heard since Sinatra’s backing band helped him own New York.

– John Cassillo