Eric Whitacre (b.1970)
Home
Go, Lovely Rose (1992 rev. 2001)
The Seal Lullaby (2008)
Sing Gently (2020)
All Seems Beautiful to Me (2022)
The Sacred Veil (2018)
Voces8/Eric Whitacre
Emma Denton (cello)
Christopher Glynn (piano)
rec. 2022, Voces8 Centre, London
Decca 4853970 [73]

The main work here is The Sacred Veil, an extended choral work in twelve parts, which commemorates the death of Julie, the wife of Whitacre’s collaborator, the poet and historian Charles Anthony Silvestri. Julie was only thirty-six when she died, and she left two young children. The text is mainly by Charles, though two are by Julie, two by Whitacre himself, and there are two purely instrumental numbers. They take us through her illness, diagnosis of ovarian cancer, discovery of secondaries, unsuccessful treatment, death and an epilogue. The whole harrowing story constitutes a kind of secular requiem. As well as the voices, there are parts for a cello and a piano.

The music is in Whitacre’s familiar idiom, beautiful and euphonious and well-written for voices. There are some very striking passages, such as I’m Afraid, which recounts the doctor’s disturbing findings in detail over an oscillating motif on the piano. I also liked the instrumental numbers. The work is clearly a sincere and deeply felt tribute to the wife of Whitacre’s colleague, and one must hope that he has found it consoling. However, I do have reservations about it as a composition. It is very long, over fifty-five minutes. Fauré’s requiem, to which The Sacred Veil is a kind of secular counterpart, lasts only thirty-five minutes. The musical idiom is not sufficiently varied for so long a work. I know Whitacre as the composer of motets and similar pieces, which each lasts only a few minutes and sustains a single mood. Finally, the text is tied so very closely to the sad story of Julie that I think listeners would find it difficult to make it their own, and I don’t think I can agree with Barnaby Smith, artistic director of Voces8, that it is ‘a masterwork of our time.’

As well as The Sacred Veil, the disc contains four other works, placed at the beginning. Go, lovely Rose sets Waller’s beautiful lyric and was Whitacre’s first choral composition. In it, we find his idiom already developed. The Seal Lullaby sets a poem from Kipling’s Jungle Book and nicely incorporates the ebb and flow of the water. The text of Sing gently is by Whitacre himself and the piece was written for a huge virtual choir during lockdown. It also works when sung by small forces. All seems beautiful to me sets lines by Walt Whitman. I am afraid that, though he has been popular with composers, I do not get on with him, and I cannot cope with such lines as:

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know that I held so much goodness.

The performances, by Voces8 and conducted by the composer, are exemplary. The recording is a little close but acceptable. The sleevenote includes all the texts but is a bit short on background information, for which I have gone to Whitacre’s own website. Whitacre’s fans will want this; others might prefer his shorter works.

Stephen Barber

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