Composer’s Note:

This instrumental suite is abstracted from my opera, A Soul’s Journey: The Story of St. Edith Stein. The story follows Edith Stein’s life, from her home in a Jewish family in Germany, to her baptism to Christianity, her entering a convent, and finally her death at Auschwitz in 1942.*

The suite includes 1) Prelude, 2) October Waltz, where she dances with her siblings, 3) Children are a Blessing, her mother expresses her concerns, 4) O Infinite Goodness, Edith begins to consider baptism, 5) Love’s Urgent Longings, she enters a convent, and 6) One Habit and Aprons, as Edith packs for the train to Auschwitz. [She was canonized in 1998.]

After the Prelude, the violin is the voice of Edith while the clarinet and horn play the vocal parts of her mother and other characters in the opera. The music is often quite tonal, but includes extended tonality, quartal harmonies and much dissonance.

*(While the Jewish people bore the brunt of the Nazi’s extermination, many Gypsies and Catholics were also sentenced to the death camps.)