Music has the ability to warm the heart and give you a sense of contentment. Everyone has a composer that can make them feel this way, and one of those composers for me is Eric Whitacre. I have been fascinated by the purity in Eric Whitacre’s pieces ever since my junior year of high school. I have taken the time to listen to all of his pieces in my spare time. Eric Whitacre is an American composer and most of his music was written for choral ensemble, but he has also written pieces for wind symphony (Cummings 1). One piece for example, “The Seal Lullaby,” was almost never going to be heard. It was originally made for a Disney movie, but was unfortunately not picked (AllMusic 2). Before I get into detail about the history behind this gorgeous piece, I would like to talk about the man that created the music first and what his life was like.
Eric Whitacre was born in Reno, Nevada, on January 2, 1970. He already gave the signs for his love of music when he attended Douglas High School in Minden, Nevada and played in their band. He did not begin his advanced music studies until he attended the University of Nevada, where he studied the Ukrainian composer Virko Baley and studied conducting with David Weller (Cummings 1). Whitacre received his master’s degree at Juilliard. There he studied composition with David Diamond and John Corigliano. By time the mid-90s came, Whitacre’s name and choral music had not reached the attention of many people. His most popular pieces, “Cloudburst” (1992) and “Water Night” (1995) gained currency and his first recordings came out in the late 90’s and around the “turn-of-the-century,” leading Eric Whitacre to be internationally as “among the most important American composers,” (Cummings 1).
Now that you know the man behind these pieces, I will like to talk about his reason for making one of his popular pieces, "The Seal Lullaby." The song was originally made for a Kipling movie called “The White Seal” that Disney was going to review and maybe pick as their next movie. The piece was made to being Kipling’s tale with the mother seal singing to her child. Because the piece was originally made for a choir, it has a poem incorporated into the piece (Whitacre):
“Oh! Hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
“and black are the waters that sparkled so green.
“The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us,
“At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
“Where billow meets billow then soft thy pillow,
“Oh weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
“The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
“Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas!” (Kipling).
Unfortunately, Whitacre found out that the movie “Kung Fu Panda” was chosen instead. So for a while Whitacre did nothing with the piece but to sing it to his son every night to get him to fall asleep. But then, a few years later the Towne Singers commissioned this piece, and Stephen Schwartz conducted it (Whitacre).
Eric Whitacre has made many pieces, but another piece that really touched me deeply was the piece “Lux Aurumque.” The choral version of this piece was commissioned by the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and he dedicated this pieces to his good friend Dr. Jo Michael Scheibe. Also, the band version of this piece was commissioned by the Texas All State band (Whitacre). In my own opinion, this piece is the highlight of his CD “Light and Gold.” When I listen to this piece, all I can see when I close your eyes is God’s light and the shimmer of the golden gates shining in the background. Some of the lyrics of the piece are “Light, warm and heavy as a pure gold and angels sing softly to the new-born babe.” These lyrics capture the feel of his Grammy award winning CD “Light and Gold,” (Whitacre).
Citation:
Cummings, Robert. “AllMusic.” AllMusic. AllMusic, 2014. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
“AllMusic.” AllMusic. AllMusic, 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Eric, Whitacre. The Seal Lullaby. Copyright London, England: 2009.
Eric, Whitacre. Lux Aurumque. BCM International Score & Parts.
