From an Overspilling Jar
Instrumentation: 8 voices and glass harmonica
Year Composed: 2018
Duration: 8 minutes
Program Notes:
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From an Overspilling Jar was written for Roomful of Teeth to commemorate the opening of the O’Neill Hall of Music at Notre Dame. The most difficult part about writing this piece was finding the text. As per the commission, I needed a sacred text. The text also needed to be suitable for the opening of a new space dedicated to music making and learning. Finally, it also needed to be something that (I hope) engaged the ensemble—a cutting-edge new music group not typically known for sacred music. I knew from the outset that I did not want to write one of those dreadful “inaugural pieces”—a “Bless This House” or “Make a Joyful Noise” sort of piece whose musical and theological relation to the occasion would be obvious and superficial. After many months of searching, I eventually found this text by the 13th Century German mystic, Mechthild of Madgeburg, translated poetically by Jane Hirshfield:
Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.*
I think the most striking thing about Mechthild’s poetry is the way that she expresses so many meanings at once. My piece meditates on this poem without trying to over-prescribe a single interpretation. Until the end of the of the piece, no one vocalist recites the entire poem. Instead, each voice sings only overlapping fragments—a short string of words, or even a single phoneme. The glass harmonica augments the ensemble with an added layer of mystery and ambiguity. I attempt to capture a sense of profound muteness, but also unity through multiplicity. Musicians understand this; we devote ourselves to the study of something greater than we can fully grasp or ever articulate. Yet, like the honey bee, we build something together that we could never accomplish on our own.
From an Overspilling Jar was written for Roomful of Teeth to commemorate the opening of the O’Neill Hall of Music at Notre Dame. The most difficult part about writing this piece was finding the text. As per the commission, I needed a sacred text. The text also needed to be suitable for the opening of a new space dedicated to music making and learning. Finally, it also needed to be something that (I hope) engaged the ensemble—a cutting-edge new music group not typically known for sacred music. I knew from the outset that I did not want to write one of those dreadful “inaugural pieces”—a “Bless This House” or “Make a Joyful Noise” sort of piece whose musical and theological relation to the occasion would be obvious and superficial. After many months of searching, I eventually found this text by the 13th Century German mystic, Mechthild of Madgeburg, translated poetically by Jane Hirshfield:
Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar.*
I think the most striking thing about Mechthild’s poetry is the way that she expresses so many meanings at once. My piece meditates on this poem without trying to over-prescribe a single interpretation. Until the end of the of the piece, no one vocalist recites the entire poem. Instead, each voice sings only overlapping fragments—a short string of words, or even a single phoneme. The glass harmonica augments the ensemble with an added layer of mystery and ambiguity. I attempt to capture a sense of profound muteness, but also unity through multiplicity. Musicians understand this; we devote ourselves to the study of something greater than we can fully grasp or ever articulate. Yet, like the honey bee, we build something together that we could never accomplish on our own.
* Mechtild of Madgeburg, “[Of all that God has shown me]” translation © Jane Hirshfield, from
Women in Praise of the Sacred (New York: Harper Collins, 1994); used by permission of Jane Hirshfield, all rights reserved.
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From an Overspilling Jar
Roomful of Teeth, Brad Wells, conducting
John Liberatore, glass harmonica
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