Transfiguration (2017)

Written for solo piano, performed by myself, released on Covenant (2017).

The Transfiguration is one of the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament. He and three of the disciples go to the top of a mountain to pray. At the top, Jesus’s face and clothes begin to shine bright with light, and Moses and Elijah appear and begin talking with Jesus. One of the disciples, Peter, offers to build three shelters for Jesus and the two other prophets, but then a cloud descends upon them and a loud voice emanates from it, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen, listen to him.” When the cloud dissipates, Moses and Elijah are gone, and Jesus then tells the disciples to tell no one of what happened.

Transfiguration oscillates between two chorales a tritone apart, the most disparate of intervals, A flat major and D major. Beginning in A flat, the chorales go between each other three times, each time rising in register and hastening in rhythmic subdivision. The first statement of the chorales are the most simple, stated in root position harmonies, entirely in 8th notes. In the second statement of the chorales, the harmonies are mostly in first inversion chords and the predominant rhythm is the 16th note. The third statement reaches a pinnacle of a constant flurry of high register 32nd with harmonies in their second inversion.

There are two versions of this work. In the original, longer one which appears in Covenant there is then a dramatic, freeform chromatic development section which combines sonorities of the two previous stated keys. This is the cloud that terrified the disciples. From this cloud emerges the first melody, stated in A flat, but what was the D major chorale. The other version is abridged and does not contain this middle development section.

I released this piano piece in the album in September 2017.