In this week's episode, Jason analyzes the second and third movements of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, performing a close reading of the music from a broadened, newer perspective of voice.

This episode was produced by Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Anna Rose Nelson. Special thanks to peer reviewers Kristen Wallentinsen and Evan Ware.

SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/

[Intro Theme by Maria Tartaglia.]

Welcome to SMT-Pod, the premier audio publication of the Society for Music Theory! In this week's episode, Jason analyzes the second and third movements of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, performing a close reading of the music from a broadened, newer perspective of voice.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, 2nd and 3rd movements (excerpts spliced)]

The snippets of gorgeous music you just heard are from the third symphony by Polish composer Henryk Górecki. Subtitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, this work shows a big departure from the composer’s earlier dissonant, avant-garde compositional language—it uses traditional triads and seventh chords, repetition of material, and simple, clear textures in a modal and tonal style.

Though composed in 1976, it became one of classical music’s greatest hits in the early ‘90s with the issue of the London Sinfonietta recording, attracting vast audiences with its emotionally impactful subject matter. Specifically, Górecki interweaves his devout Catholicism and interest in Polish folk music with themes of motherhood and loss. The Polish texts that Górecki set for solo soprano and orchestra all deal with motherhood from two vantage points: the mother herself and the child. Additionally, Górecki’s invocation of the Virgin Mary lends these themes of motherhood a deeper meaning within his Catholic faith.

While the soprano’s voice brings the text to life in a practical sense, the way in which Górecki sets the words and the orchestral environment in which he couches those words bring meaning to the text in a less obvious, but far more interesting sense. When I listen to this piece, it’s as if there are several voices—you could say characters in a sense—interacting in the world inside the piece, figuratively speaking.

To understand why this music is so impactful, I want to pose the following central question: How can I broaden the idea of voice and vocality from their literal meanings to include metaphorical and agential meanings as well? Since the piece at hand is a texted work, a great way into the piece is through voice.

To that end, in today’s episode, I’ll perform a close, music-theoretical reading of the second and third movements of Górecki’s third symphony using voice as a point of departure for my analytical thinking. In particular, I’m interested in how the voice of the orchestra seems to suppress the voice of the child in the second movement, creating an obstacle that the voice of the child must, and does, overcome.

I’m also interested in how the voice of the orchestra seems to act in the opposite way on the voice of the mother in the third movement—here, the voice of the orchestra provides a vehicle of support for the mother to express her emotions. Such relationships do not exist in the first movement, which I’ll have to set aside for the time being.

With this episode, I’ll be offering one of the first music-theoretical forays into Górecki’s music. I hope to demonstrate that by studying the meaning of each text, connecting those meanings with musical structure, and considering agency through vocality, we can better understand the piece. Specifically, the notes, chords, and melodies tell the stories of heartache, loss, and acceptance, ultimately enhancing our understanding of the human dimensions of the text’s themes.

I’m also interested in putting the piece back into the cultural conversation after it captured the public consciousness some thirty years ago. Finally, in a broader sense, I want to illustrate a framework that could potentially apply to other texted pieces of music.

To begin my study, I’ll describe an interpretive model of agency defined in Seth Monahan’s 2013 article “Action and Agency Revisited.” Essentially, an agent, in the literary sense, is a character that has the freedom and capacity to make choices, act freely, and control their lives within the story. This can also be applied to a story within a piece of music. Generally speaking, various agents act on each other by musical mechanisms that can be located in a score, such as an unexpected change in harmony, a particular melodic shape, or, more specific to this episode, meaning of the text.

Monahan originally created his model to describe and understand different kinds of agential conceits in music-theoretical analytical writing. Basically, it’s a way to analyze a written analysis of a given piece of music. Monahan seeks to understand various types of agents and their essential characteristics as they appear in analytical prose. He wants to determine the relational logic that (quote) allows authors to transfer agency from one locus to another without forfeiting coherence or bewildering their readers (unquote).

To achieve these goals, Monahan builds a four-fold hierarchy of agent classes. These are, in order of lowest to highest rank, the individuated element, work-persona, fictional composer, and analyst. The bottom-level individuated elements live and act in a fundamentally musical world, and can take the form of musical objects that are volitional and purposive, such as themes and motives, among others. The work-persona is simply the piece of music itself, personified. The fictional composer is the postulated person as the controlling, intending author of the musical text. And, finally, the analyst, at the top, is the person analyzing the piece themselves.

In constructing this hierarchy, Monahan notes that (quote) any musical event that can be regarded as agential can also be construed as the intentional action of any higher, but not lower, ranking agent class (unquote). The addition of intentionality yields the following relationships: the individuated element can be an agent, or it can be an action performed by the work-persona, the fictional composer, or the analyst.

The work-persona can be an agent, or it can be an action performed by the fictional composer or the analyst. The fictional composer can be an agent, or it can be an action performed by the analyst. The analyst, sitting at the top, can only be an agent.

As useful as this model is for understanding analytical discourse, it does have its limitations, as Monahan acknowledges. Not only was the model constructed for instrumental music, but it was also constructed for early 19th-century instrumental music, namely that of Beethoven and Schubert. This music of the early 19th century was largely thought of as being volitional and purposive in and of itself. The 20th century, however, brought about the restructuring of the world order and changes in the aesthetic landscape, ushering in new ways of thinking about and organizing music.

Since Górecki’s symphony was written in the 20th century and is a texted piece of music, I’m interested in how Monahan’s ideas of agency might apply here. To that end—and this is my main contribution in this episode—I want to repurpose and adapt his model to analyze the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs itself, rather than my analysis of it.

Instead of building ON Monahan’s model, I want to build OUT from it, retaining the spirit, intentionality, and interaction of Monahan’s hierarchies while occasionally setting those hierarchies aside.

The next step in my study is to broaden the definition of voice and vocality and connect them to Monahan’s ideas. I want to codify the several literal and figurative voices interacting in the world internal and external to Górecki’s music. To do this, I borrow three German nouns, related by synonym or root, that can translate to some abstract idea of voice. German has a closeness in similarity with English, as they’re both Germanic languages, and gives shadings and nuance through root words and suffixes that English cannot.

It allows us to see the shadings of meaning in a fine-grained way that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, and “binds” the many intertwined aspects of Gorecki’s piece together. All three German nouns interact with their own intention and can be thought of as characters of sorts. These are also the vessels through which the drama of Górecki’s chosen texts is enacted musically. You can find translations and definitions on the supplemental handout online.

The first noun, Gesang, can be translated in many ways, such as hymn, chant, or the act of chanting. But two other translations are especially important here: —song, and the act of singing. The former meaning, song, is fitting for a work subtitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. In particular, the text of the 3rd movement is an old Polish folk song. The latter meaning, the act of singing, is the most applicable here and applies to the fictional, sorrowful voices of the mother and child internal to the narrative world of the music.

The second noun, Stimmung, can be translated as atmosphere, morale, and even tuning. The most pertinent translation here, however, is mood, and applies to the instrumental “voice” of the orchestra internal to the narrative world of the music. All essential musical parameters, such as tempo, key, chords, gestures, and timbre, among others, can be thought of as belonging to the Stimmung. The Stimmung also serves as a backdrop, or a setting of sorts, for the Gesang.

The third noun, Stimme, can be translated as voice part, register, call, mouthpiece, and even vote. The best translation for the current study, however, is simply voice, and applies to the literal, real-world voice of the soprano external to the world of the music. By external, I mean being representative of the soprano’s feelings expressed in the real world as opposed to the character’s feelings inside the character’s soul.

Now that I’ve elevated the three German nouns to agents of vocality in Górecki’s piece, I’d like to place these agents as they relate to the piece. The Gesang, or act of singing, and Stimmung, or mood, are internal to the piece, with the Stimme, or voice, external to the piece. In the following musical example from the second movement, be sure to listen to these three agents. The Gesang is manifested through the character of the teenage girl who’s saying, “No, Mother, do not weep.” The Stimme is, in this recording, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and the Stimmung is the orchestra.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, "Mamo, Mamo, nie płacz, nie”]

To connect these agents of vocality to Monahan’s agents, it’s important to remember that again, I’m not as concerned with hierarchy amongst the Gesang, Stimmung, and Stimme as I am with the sheer interaction among them in Górecki’s piece. I’m more interested in keeping a general, loose, mobile sense of hierarchy that can be flexible when needed. I want to convey a general suggestion of how these voices operate most of the time. With this loose hierarchy, I don’t mean to imply that there’s a strict one-to-one correspondence between Monahan’s agent classes and my agents of vocality, or Monahan’s analyst and my analyst. It’s more nuanced than that, as I’ll show in a bit.

Nonetheless, I’d like to arrange the German nouns and the analyst in a four-fold structure like Monahan: at the bottom, we have the Stimme, and moving up the ladder, so to speak, we have the Gesang, then the Stimmung, then the analyst. This arrangement shows the most frequent relationships within Górecki’s piece: moving top-down, the Stimmung acts on the Gesang, just as Monahan’s fictional composer acts on the work-persona.

In turn, the Gesang acts on the Stimme, just as Monahan’s work-persona acts on the individuated element. But sometimes, as I’ll show, elements of a lower rank can act on elements of a higher rank, and can even act in opposition to them. To name one example, in the second movement, the lower-level Gesang acts on the higher-level Stimmung. This is precisely where a flexible hierarchy is needed, and it’s at these points in the piece that are especially interesting!

Speaking of which, now that I’ve laid out my analytical framework based on Monahan’s model, let’s dive into the music! To put my special case example another way, at the beginning of this movement, the Stimmung has control of everything, but as the piece moves forward, the Gesang asserts agency, breaking the Stimmung’s control and bringing the Stimmung along with it.

The second movement’s text consists of a short prayer by an eighteen-year old Polish girl during World War II. This prayer was written inside a prison cell in the Gestapo’s headquarters in the Polish city of Zakopane and is at once simple and profound, invoking the beginning of the Catholic Ave Maria. The English translation on the handout is as follows:

No, Mother, do not weep.

Most chaste Queen of Heaven

Support me always.

Hail, Mary, full of grace.

The movement begins with an invocation in A major from the strings, piano, and harp. We heard part of this gesture at the very beginning of the episode.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, opening A major gesture]

Next, the A major invocation gives way to B-flat minor via a neo-Riemannian slide transformation. Let’s listen to this transformation.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, slide gesture]

If you’re following along with a score, we’re right at rehearsal 1. Here, the Gesang is the child’s voice internal to the piece. Listen for two utterances of the word “mama.”

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first two mamas]

To provide context for the Gesang, the Stimmung orchestra plays a B-flat to D-flat minor third in the lower strings, clarinet, horns, and piano. This is thickly and darkly scored, largely due to the horns being in their very low register. At a tempo of a quarter note equals 44, the repeated dyad can be heard as a B-flat minor chord articulating the key of B-flat minor, setting the stage for the Gesang’s entrance.

When the Gesang begins with “mama,” the Stimme soprano enters at the bottom of her range, on a D-flat. Because the Stimmung painted the picture so darkly, the Stimme’s D-flat seemingly has nowhere to go but down to C in a sighing motion. Though this gesture has been ubiquitous throughout musical history, Maria Anna Harley cites this as an instance of sorrow and mourning for Górecki’s music.

It is notable that Górecki chooses the D-flat to C semitone because these two notes, generally speaking, are at the bottom of a soprano’s—here, the Stimme’s—range. So the literal bottom of the Stimme’s range mirrors that of the Gesang, as C is the lowest pitch in the vocal part. Here, the Stimmung is acting on the Gesang, which, in turn, is acting on the Stimme. The Gesang is influencing the use of the Stimme’s bottom range.

The child might wish to utter the two syllables of “mama” on the same pitch, if not rise higher, but the Stimmung is preventing her from doing so. Let’s listen to that clip again.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first two mamas (repeated)]

In the next clip, we’ll hear the Gesang try to break free from the Stimmung’s suppression and containment. It’s worth noting here that the strings repeat the pitch D-flat, but never C, between utterances, setting up an expectation that the Gesang will, too. Listen for a more effortful sound through slightly longer phrases.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, mama, do not weep]

After managing two more utterances of “mama,” the Gesang musters just enough strength to rise a whole step both times with the calm encouragement “do not weep.” More effort is expended, but again, the Stimmung pushes the Gesang back down to C.

To explain the pushing down, I suggest that the rules of dissonant counterpoint as codified by Charles Seeger are in operation here. The B-flat to D-flat minor third, a traditionally consonant interval, “resolves” to the B-flat to C major second, a traditionally dissonant interval. Traditional rules of consonance and dissonance are reversed, similar to how the agency of the Stimmung and Gesang will be in a moment.

The Gesang expends further effort in a phrase elongation of sorts, managing to rise to E-flat twice, only to ultimately be pulled down. So far, the Stimmung’s B-flat minor harmony has remained defiantly static. The Gesang, with a grand total of just three pitches, has put forth a tremendous amount of emotional labor, and the Stimme, having to deal with a very slow tempo, at the bottom of her range, must manage her respiratory labor to support ever elongating phrases created by the Gesang. Let’s listen again.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, mama, do not weep (repeated)]

That labor is about to pay off, however. Let’s listen to the moment of transcendence, where the Gesang starts to soar in her newfound freedom from the Stimmung’s control. Listen for a turn towards a brighter, but still warm, sound and more energy.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, transcendence (niebios…mnie on Bb)]

With a holy invocation to the Virgin Mary as described in the text, the child’s address goes beyond her earthly mother to a spiritual one. On the word “heaven,” the Gesang receives supernatural strength: it rises to a new pitch, F, in a brave act of agential assertion in the face of the Stimmung. The pitch F is significant in that it not only realizes the chordal fifth of the B-flat minor triad, but that Górecki uses it on the word “chaste.”

At this moment, the defiance from the Stimmung starts to weaken, and the Gesang slowly rises stepwise. It is at the completion of the word “pure,” on an A-flat, where the Gesang’s transcendence finally takes place! In this moment of transcendence, there is a reversal of agency. The quiet courage mustered by the Gesang is powerful enough that it overturns the staunch severity of the B-flat minor of the Stimmung.

So now, instead of the Stimmung acting on the Gesang, the script is flipped—the Gesang is acting on the Stimmung. Not only does the Stimmung’s harmony change to a D-flat major 7th chord, but the key changes to its relative, D-flat major. Moreover, the utterance of “most chaste queen of heaven” outlines a D-flat major pentachord—perhaps the scalar goal the Gesang was trying to reach since the beginning.

The Gesang’s growing fervency illuminates the transcendence, as she sings “queen.” With the completion of this line, the Gesang reaches a B-flat—not only filling out the lower fifth of the D-flat major scale, but reaching over the top as well. The Gesang completes the octave with a high D-flat on the word “support” in the phrase “Support me always.”

Furthermore, the Gesang acts on the Stimme, the literal soprano voice: the Gesang’s newfound freedom makes the Stimme much freer and more comfortable in her range, and, registrally, more able to project. Let’s listen again with this in mind.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, transcendence (niebios…mnie on Bb)(repeated)]

The last clip that we’ll hear from the second movement repeats the words “support me always.” Listen for even more energy as the soprano soars even higher.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, final soar (ty zawsze wspieraj twice)]

The Gesang, not to be stopped in her fervency, continues to soar in her newfound freedom, asking the mother, both earthly and heavenly, to “support her always.” Of note is the apex of this section, where the Gesang reaches a high A-flat. This means that the Stimme, being acted on by the Gesang, is in her high register and must support that note (and the rest of the phrase) on the word “support,” a rather interesting alignment with the text! Additionally, the high A-flat mirrors the transcendent note an octave higher, keeping the moment of transcendence cemented in our ears.

To briefly summarize the second movement, an invocation in A major gives way to B-flat minor, setting the stage for the Gesang’s entrance. The Gesang sings a sighing gesture on “mama,” causing the Stimme to enter at the bottom of her range. The despondent Gesang calls out to the Virgin Mary and receives supernatural strength to assert herself in the face of the Stimmung, reversing the agential roles.

I’ll now turn my attention to the third movement, whose text is a folk song from the Opole region of Poland. It could be thought of as a tragic lullaby, describing the Silesian Uprisings that took place from 1919-1921. In this movement, the Stimmung takes on a more compassionate role, supporting the Gesang, now the voice of the mother, in expressing her thoughts.

The Stimmung also provides a background of sorts for the Gesang by way of chordal gesture and key. Most importantly, however, is that there is another moment of transcendence, but in a different way than there was in the second movement. Here, the Stimmung, by way of chordal gestures increasing in intensity as part of a journey traversing three keys—A minor, C major, and A major, supports and uplifts the Gesang all the way through, as opposed to suppressing it at the beginning. It’s at the arrival in A major that the transcendence is achieved.

The English translation of the text, which you’ll find on the handout, is as follows:

Where has he gone

My dearest son?

Perhaps during the uprising

The cruel enemy killed him.

Ah, you bad people

In the name of God, the most Holy,

Tell me, why did you kill

My son?

Never again

Will I have his support

Even if I cry

My old eyes out.

Were my bitter tears

To create another River Oder

They would not restore to life

My son.

He lies in his grave

And I know not where

Though I keep asking people

Everywhere.

Perhaps the poor child

Lies in a rough ditch

And instead he could have been

Lying in his warm bed.

Oh, sing for him

God’s little song-birds

Since his mother

Cannot find him.

And you, God’s little flowers,

May you blossom all around

So that my son

May sleep happily.

This third movement has humble beginnings. The Stimmung begins with a simple, oscillating two-chord gesture in the upper strings. This suggests a most basic motion or function, perhaps that of a heartbeat, breathing, or walking. The Stimmung clears a path, so to speak, for the Gesang. Though the key is a bit ambiguous at first, the melody confirms the key of A minor upon entering. In a moment, we’ll hear the first quatrain of text: “Where has he gone, my dearest son? Perhaps during the uprising, the cruel enemy killed him.” Let’s listen to this excerpt, paying attention to the oscillating chords and the Gesang’s melody.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first quatrain, first excerpt]

In the next excerpt, the Stimmung brings a slight air of optimism, despite the text’s quatrain “Never again will I have his support, even if I cry my old eyes out.” Here, the oscillating chordal gesture changes to two pairs of inverted seventh chords that are not so much stuck in the dreary A minor, but start to point towards the relative key of C major.

This activity from the Stimmung provides a bit of relief to the Gesang as she expresses her anger and sadness. The Gesang starts to grow more impassioned as she sings higher notes and the phrases arch higher. Furthermore, the Stimme must provide enough breath support to energize these phrases dictated by the Gesang, particularly in the eighth notes. Let’s listen, taking note of the brighter, more-optimistic sounding chordal gestures and the higher melody.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first quatrain, second excerpt]

In the next section, the Stimmung makes some significant developments regarding gesture and key. Not only does it now lengthen its regular oscillating chordal gesture to four chords, but now, it’s not just pointing or hinting at the key of C major, it’s realizing the key of C major. This is a big step on our journey from A minor to C major!

Indeed, the progression consists of the chords A minor, G major in first inversion, and C major. Additionally, the Stimmung is flexible in its chordal gesture, sometimes contracting to just two chords or even repeating a chord within the four-chord gesture, thereby “stretching” it to accommodate the Gesang’s melody. Further ruminating and speculating on her son’s death, the Gesang sings the same general melodic contour as in the beginning, but this time, the Stimmung’s C major background recasts this in ever growing hope.

Of note is the Gesang’s melisma on “grave,” emphasizing that word. The text here is “He lies in his grave and I know not where, though I keep asking people everywhere.” As we listen, notice the longer chordal gesture, and in particular, the C major chord on the third beat.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first quatrain, third excerpt]

So far, in these three excerpts, the Stimmung has supported the Gesang by providing chordal gestures that progressively brighten by both elongation and harmonic direction. The two-chord gesture goes to four, while gaining a bit of flexibility in the number of chords. The tonal journey goes from A minor to its relative key, C major, through an intermediary stage of neither being firmly in A minor nor C major, but rather, on the way, or pointing to, C major.

In the final excerpt from the third movement, however, we reach our transcendence! It is here that we feel a sense of emotional release. Coming from C major, the Stimmung undergoes a neo-Riemannian RP, or relative parallel, transformation to A major for a welcome change in mood that syncs up with the turn in the text. The text in this portion is “Oh, sing for him, God’s little song-birds, since his mother cannot find him.”

Let’s listen to this transformation, first with the individual relative and parallel moves, then with the double operation. You’ll hear a C major, A minor, and A major chords, followed by C major and A major.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, RP transformation]

The Stimmung, with its heartbeat and breathing gestures from before, gives way to a crystallized, repeated A major chord in humble resplendence. In addition, there is a descending A major pentachord gesture, itself harmonized by seventh chords and an added sixth tonic chord. Here, the Stimmung is gently uplifting the Gesang in a very direct way by doubling her melody when she sings “God’s little flowers” in the hopes that her son may rest happily in peace.

The Stimmung allows the Gesang to express her thoughts of quiet acceptance more easily and unencumbered than ever before, as two very important things happen here. The first is this: not only does A major signify a brightening from the movement’s beginning A minor through a parallel transformation, but this is the same A major that began the second movement!

This not only unites the work towards a more cohesive whole, but also carries the weight associated with the Gesang’s earlier break from the Stimmung’s suppression.

The second important thing is this: The Stimme relaxes in the parlando-style delivery of the text, emphasizing the note C-sharp.

Enharmonically respelled, this D-flat is the tonic of sorts from the first moment of transcendence, and the exact pitch retained from the slide transformation from A major to B-flat minor, further reinforcing a connection between the movements! Take note of these changes as we listen to the fourth and final excerpt.

[Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, first quatrain, fourth excerpt]

In closing, I hope to have shown how my broadening of voice has been useful in performing a close reading of the second and third movements of Górecki’s Symphony No. 3. Let’s return briefly to the central question I posed at the beginning: How can I broaden the idea of voice and vocality from their literal meanings to include metaphorical and agential meanings as well?

Well, I’ve adapted and built on Monahan’s four-fold hierarchical model of agent classes to describe analytical writing, but I repurposed it to analyze the piece itself while accommodating the concerns of 20th-century vocal music. Moreover, I largely set aside the hierarchy for the purposes of flexibility, while keeping the intentionality behind it.

For my own agent classes that function as characters and voices of sorts, I used three German nouns: the Gesang, which is the singing voice of the mother or child internal to the piece, the Stimmung, which is the mood set forth by the orchestra internal to the piece, and the Stimme, which is the literal voice of the soprano external to the piece. All three interact.

In the second movement, the Stimmung acts on the Gesang, only for this arrangement to be flipped with some supernatural help. In the third movement, the Stimmung helps the mother cope with the loss of her son. The Stimmung uses swelling and contracting gestures—the breathing, heartbeat, and so forth—along with key—a journey from A minor, to C major, then to A major—to not only accommodate, but uplift, the Gesang. Studying the interactions of the Gesang, Stimmung, and Stimme were able to not only illuminate Górecki’s settings of each movement’s text regarding motherhood, loss, and suffering, but can also help us understand the human dimensions of each text’s themes.

Future work in this area might involve studying individual consonants, vowels, and other phonemes in light of what the Stimme has to perform. This could be related to text accentuation, labor of the soprano herself, or even labor within the scope of this piece. For example, through the labor of breath control, the soprano can shape the delivery and impact of the piece’s meaning in various ways.

It would also be instructive to look at other religious works of Górecki, such as O Domina nostra, Totus tuus, or Beatus Vir, seeing how themes of motherhood intersect with the choral writing. Moreover, studies of works by other composers, such as Arvo Pärt or John Tavener, could be enriched by what I’ve proposed here. For now, though, we can take solace in knowing that by broadening the idea of voice in Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, the subjects of motherhood and loss are expressed through multiple agents. Thanks for listening.

Special thanks to Kristen Wallentinsen and Evan Ware for their input and suggestions for this episode, Katrina Roush for producing it, and to Anna Rose Nelson for overseeing logistics.

[Outro Theme by Yike Zhang.]

Visit our website, smt-pod.org, for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. You can join in the conversation by tweeting us your questions and comments @SMT_Pod. SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang.