mine but for its sublimation [2021]
piano [60-70’]
written for Jack Yarbrough
“…it has a cumulative power that left me a little dazed the first time I listened… I heard that E-flat chord as a spiritual event. It was as if no such chord had existed before or would exist again.”
-Alex Ross, The New Yorker [June, 2025]
recording
Portrait Disc on Another Timbre. Performed by Jack Yarbrough. Purchase here.
further reading
Bach’s Colossus - column written by Alex Ross in the New Yorker about mine but for its sublimation & Bach’s B-minor Mass [June, 2025]
interview with Simon Reynell of Another Timbre [April, 2025]
performance history
12/4/2024 - Jack Yarbrough. Conrad Prebys Music Center. UCSD. San Diego, CA
10/16/2023 - Jack Yarbrough. Jordan Hall. New England Conservatory. Boston, MA
9/29/2022 - Jack Yarbrough. Barnes Hall. Cornell University. Ithaca, NY
7/21/2022 - Jack Yarbrough. Florentinersaal. Graz, Austria
4/5/2022 - Jack Yarbrough. LIVESTREAM
4/2/2022 - Jack Yarbrough. Seully Hall. Boston Conservatory. Boston, MA
video
reactions
“Timothy McCormack’s single movement composition mine but for its sublimation is the sole focus of one of the most extraordinary discs of solo piano music I have heard in a long time. In what feels like the most undemonstrative way, the writing and playing somehow rivet one’s attention from the start and when release comes just over an hour later, one feels overwhelmed, emotionally, spiritually, musically. […] It’s this sense of sustained engagement with the music, so rare at the level one experiences it here, which makes the encounter so precious. […] My appreciation has only deepened on repeated listening.” -Dominic Hartley, MusicWeb International
“Having achieved this state of otherworldliness, […] It all ends with a slow but brutal finality and I’m still knocked about by the way McCormack and Yarbrough have created a transformative piece out of chin-stroking acoustical considerations while also delivering an emotional thump.” -Boring Like A Drill
program note
mine but for its sublimation is about resonance, register, and touch. It is about where we lead ourselves when we trust ourselves. It is experiencing trust as a chain of clearings, a sequence of becomings, openings, centerings. It is about letting go; othering; finding presence through evaporation. Obliteration.