(un)Created Hole draws its texts from three unrelated sources while still linking to one theme: that of Ventricular Septal Defect. Using texts from the Bible, Friedrich Rückert’s Kindertotenlieder and the Mayo Clinic website, (un)Created Hole presents itself as memories layered upon one another in order to describe being diagnosed with VSD while in utero. The words of Rückert invoke the memory and emotions of the mother, while the words of the Psalmist are the words of the fetus who is miraculously healed. The main pitch material, A-A#-G (sometimes respelled for pragmatic purposes) is a cipher of the fetus’ initials (A-Li-G). Throughout the piece, the piano murmurs fragments of the hymn “Be Still, My Soul” as the singer recreates a fictionalized scene of monologues from the mother, the fetus and the doctor.

(un)Created Hole was commissioned by Prima Voce Emerging Artists, for tenor Arnold Livingston Geis and pianist Grant Gershon.

Texts

From Mayo Clinic

A ventricular septal defect (VSD), a hole in the heart, is a common heart defect that's present at birth (congenital). The hole (defect) occurs in the wall (septum) that separates the heart's lower chambers (ventricles)...

From Bible - excerpts from Psalm 139 (HCSB)

For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You
because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful,
and I know this very well.
My bones were not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began.
Search me, God, and know my heart...

From Kindertotenlieder

“Mein Herz dem Leid ergab ich,
Es ist ein schlechter Trost,
Doch keinen bessern hab’ ich.”

“In diesem Wetter, in diesem Saus, in diesem Braus,
Sie ruh’n als wie in der Mutter Haus,
Von keinem Sturm erschrecket,
Von Gottes Hand bedecket.”

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