Performed by the Amorsima Trio, 2 November 2021 at the University of North Texas.

The concept behind Verklärte Einblicke (Transfigured Glimpses) was inspired by a note that artist Jasper Johns (b. 1930) scrawled in one of his sketchbooks, which subsequently became a maxim invoked by contemporary artists, critics, and art historians:

"Take an Object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. [Repeat.]"

The “object” in this case is Beethoven’s String Trio, Op. 9 No. 3 — specifically, 11 fragments from this work, which are recast through a variety of transformational processes. These modified fragments are presented as a series of brief episodes, each framed by silence—evoking, in a somewhat exaggerated manner, Beethoven’s notable use of the Grand Pause in many of his own works. The Op. 9 string trios are early works in the composer's oeuvre, and as precursors to his revolutionary string quartets—arguably Beethoven's most significant contribution to Western chamber music, and themselves important vehicles for experimentation during the composer's middle and late periods—they provide a stylistic baseline for the development of musical materials in the present work.

Verklärte Einblicke was composed at the request of the Amorsima Trio, for a program of miniatures honoring the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.  The work was premiered by the Amorsima Trio on 2 November 2021 at the University of North Texas.

More information about this work (including score) may be found at josephklein.music.unt.edu/compositions/verklärte-einblicke.

Verklärte Einblicke — 11 fragments from Beethoven's Op. 9 No. 3 (2019)

Chamber Version Premiere
4 May 2014
The Secret Opera: The Secret Song
The Shrine Church of St. Anthony of Padua

Elise Brancheau, soprano
Sara Berger, flute
Jared Field, clarinet
Clare Semes, violin
Jihwon Na, violoncello
Joanna Huang, piano
Jessica Tsang, percussion

Text by Kathryn Levy

Justin Aaberg, 15
Justin Aaberg had just finished his freshman year at Anoka High School when he hanged himself on July 9, 2010. He was one of seven teenagers who took their own lives that year at that high school alone, at least two more of which were also gay. He was also a cellist and composer.

Seth Walsh, 13
Seth Walsh was a gentle child who once apologized to a bed of flowers for having picked one. He preferred to relocate bugs instead of killing them. And despite his mannerisms and style of dress, he struggled with his sexuality, even though his mother and grandparents tried their best to make him more at ease with himself. After one of countless times of being harassed by his fellow students, he came home from school, told his mother Wendy that he was going to play with their dogs in the back yard, and hanged himself from a tree. He lingered for 10 days in a coma before passing on Sept. 27, 2010 in Tehachapi, CA.

Asher Brown, 13
Asher Brown was an eighth grader at Hamilton Middle School outside Houston, TX when he shot himself with his stepfather's pistol on Sept. 23, 2010. He had been bullied at school - called names and physically assaulted. The day before he killed himself, he had been pushed down a flight of stairs; before he could get up on the landing below, another classmate kicked him and his books down the rest of the stairs. Despite his parents' claims that they had asked the school to intervene, the administration denies ever having received any complaints.

Zach Harrington, 19
On Sept. 28, 2010, Zach Harrington attended a public hearing in his hometown of Norman, OK. The hearing was on a proposal to declare October as LGBT History Month in the town. Although the proposal passed, many community members at the hearing were vocally and vitrolically against it, and Zach's family blames some of the blatant hatred shown toward the LGBT community at this hearing for Zach's suicide one week later, as well as his treatment while he had been in school there. Zach was also a cellist.

Tyler Clementi, 18
Tyler Clementi's suicide was the most prominent of the LGBT teen deaths during the rash of suicides in 2010. Tyler had been a freshman at Rutgers University, played violin with the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra, and had been concertmaster of the Bergen Youth Orchestra. After his roommate secretly broadcast live video of Tyler with another man, Tyler jumped from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, 2010.

I didn't know any of these boys. Their stories came to me through the news and through LGBT blogs. Our connection is entirely through shared experience - it wasn't that long ago that I was bullied for being gay, even though I wasn't out yet (and honestly wasn't even fully aware of my sexuality). Their stories could easily have been my own but for some....strange luck? unknown strength? sheer perversity? Suicide certainly crossed my mind more than once, but never seemed the answer - it conceded defeat.

So to see these boys so beaten down by their peers and by society at large that they couldn't continue to live broke my heart. I remember coming home during October 2010 and reading of yet another child who had killed himself, and shaking as I sat at my desk. Out of desolation. Out of rage.

My response was to create something in the face of so much death.

After Dan Savage and his husband created the It Gets Better Project, and there was such a huge outpouring of support through videos on the site created by individuals, corporations, universities, and professional sports teams, I realized that one area - filled with LGBT members and LGBT supporters - was almost completely unrepresented on the site and in public shows of support: the classical music community. As of the premiere of the original orchestral version of Only Air in April 2013, not one professional orchestra had made a significant gesture in support of LGBT youth. So I'm incredibly thankful to Dr. Block and the ISU Orchestra for commissioning Only Air, and to The Secret Opera for commissioning this chamber version. I view Only Air as the orchestral equivalent of an It Gets Better video. It certainly has for me.

Only Air is in one movement: a single-text art song punctuated by five instrumental interludes, each dedicated to one of each of the boys listed above. Each interlude also makes use of a solo instrument, or highlights a particular family of instruments (in this version: piano/violin, percussion, clarinet, cello, and violin).

The text I chose for the piece is Kathryn Levy's "Only Air" from her book Losing the Moon. I met Kathryn while we were in residence together at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA in 2009. "Only Air" has three distinct "voices" in the text: it opens with a young man who will commit suicide, then shifts to a person close to the young man who both explains the circumstances of his suicide and begs him not to do it, and interwoven throughout is a sort of Greek Chorus that comments on the story and asks questions.

The chamber version of Only Air was commissioned for the inaugural season of The Secret Opera in New York City. The work also exists in three versions for orchestra.

Only Air, for voice and chamber ensemble (2014)

Return

Minnesota Percussion Trio: Bob Adney, Erik Barsness, Paul Hill
Oct. 15, 2016 Antonello Hall, MacPhail Center for Music
Cameron Wiley, recording engineer

Land of Cloud-Tinted Water depicts the beauty and diversity of five wilderness areas throughout the state of Minnesota. Minnesota is home to vast areas of prairie, wetland, shoreland, and woodland that are set away from urban areas and are unspoiled by human-created noise and activity. While there are countless places in Minnesota worthy of a piece of music, I chose five locations that reflect the diversity of the state’s landscape: Voyageurs National Park, known for its boreal forest, glacial rock formations, and interconnected lakes; the Superior Hiking Trail‘s scenic overlooks above sprawling lakeshore; the thick deciduous woodlands of Solana State Forest; the wide open prairie of Blue Mounds State Park; and Itasca State Park, known for its old-growth pine forest and the Mississippi River Headwaters.

Superior

Say Anything!

Fantasy Four Strings (I. Thinks) for bass guitar with whammy, delay, and looping pedal.

Return

Haley Woodrow

Related tracks