JOHN LIBERATORE
composer

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In 2015, I commissioned a glass harmonica from glass blowers G. Finkenbeiner, Inc. to explore the largely unexamined potential of its extraordinary timbre in contemporary chamber music.  Had They Remained, a song cycle in three parts for soprano, percussion and glass harmonica, is the first such exploration.  In this piece, the glass harmonica mostly extends and magnifies the resonance of large, reverberant percussion instruments: vibraphone, tam-tam, tubular bells, and crotales (with the xylophone for relief).  In doing so, it forms a timbral bridge between the voice and percussion.

 

The work sets seven poems by contemporary Iranian poets Mina Assadi, Esma’il Kho’i, Amir-Hossein Affrasiabi, and Abbas Saffari, all translated from Persian by Niloufar Talebi in her anthology (Be)longing.  The poets in this anthology all live outside of Iran, exiled in one way or another from their collective homeland.  I am grateful for Talebi’s translations, which have brought me into contact with this profound literature. The poems in this anthology explore themes of longing, distance, loss, and yet hopefulness.   Talebi once said to me, “words change like chameleons” as they mirror the context in which we find them.  As such, poetry is uniquely capable of bridging cultures across political divides, pointing toward a shared humanity, the realization of which is more important now than I can ever remember.

The piece was written for, premiered, and recorded by Jamie Jordan, Daniel Druckman, and myself.