![]() I don't have the musical vocabulary to hear (let alone evaluate) the qualities you articulate, so I defer to your better trained ear.īut. Sólo pisadasde pies desnudos sobre la espina?īuscando su cause, sueños de sol soñando sus mundos The text is also incredibly beautiful and speaks of reawakening the earth and dreaming of a lost time where nature and man were in balance. His ability to capture a natural phenomenon in a musical composition is astounding, and every time I listen to this piece I hear more and more elements of his work. All of Whitacre’s work is beautiful and captivating, but this piece in particular amazes me. The tension in the air before a thunderstorm is one of my favorite feelings and he managed to capture that feeling in his music. His incredible talent for composition creates a believable rainstorm and a story which the audience can relate to. As the storm tapers off, Whitacre again uses clustered chords and repeated melodies to keep the mystical element of the rainstorm. Singing over this percussion, they create a haunting melody and the minor tensions are finally relieved in a major chord progression. More and more instruments are added, imitating the sounds of rain and distant thunder, and the choir begins to snap and clap their hands creating a sound like rain. The storm becomes peaceful again and handbells begin. In the next section, the choir builds chords from the bottom, mimicking the first drops of rain and then building to constant chord progressions which sound to me like the first violent sheets of rain that fall. The music tells a story and draws in the listener, giving an ominous feeling and anticipation. The male voices have a similar chant-like line underneath all of this. He then repeats the section of repeated words in the female voices while another reads spoken lyrics over the choir. The all male section and baritone solo sound almost like ancient chant, continuing the haunting quality of the piece and Whitacre continues to build beautiful tension, portraying the feeling in the air before a thunderstorm. These chords carry into the next choral section which has lots of suspended chords and minor qualities, some of my favorite musical elements. The chord after the repeated words end is made even more powerful because of the sudden clarity of sound. ![]() It begins the theme of a rainstorm which continues later in the work. ![]() Here, the listener has a hard time understanding the words of the choir, but this cacophony mirrors the name of the piece. This technique is atypical of most choral music, which is meant to be precise and clean. The words are not meant to have a rhythm and they have a disorienting and haunting effect on the audience. The first a cappella section sets the tone for the piece and it includes a section where the choir has sustained notes with text randomly spoken by each member of the choir. The piece is incredibly complex, and is set to an adaptation of the spanish poem “El Cántaro Roto” by Octavio Paz. “Cloudburst” is a signature Whitacre piece with many voice parts, unusual chord progression, and use of percussion and spoken word. He also typically writes for at least 8 voice parts, ranging up to 18 parts in one piece. His style is very contemporary and his pieces have an abundance of cluster chords. Whitacre’s music has a very unique style that is incredibly powerful and captivating, due in large part to its originality. We went to Chicago and performed the concert version of Eric Whitacre’s “Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings” which was an incredible experience. This choice of art was inspired by the Catawba Singers tour over spring break.
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