#eric whitacre

Bewilderment and ecstasy

In the late medieval and Renaissance era, composers were fascinated by writing down one musical line and then adding an instruction to multiply it into many different ways. One such way is still well-known today: in a canon one group sings a melody and another one repeats the very same melody just one or two moments later.

Composers have had a field day with all kinds of instructions: sing the same melody a pitch higher, sing the same melody but with half the speed, sing it backwards etc. etc.

The composer Edwin London picks up on this century-old tradition. A choir sings Bach's Come Sweet Death first in a fairly traditional choral arrangement. But the second time is where things get ... interesting.

The choir is given specific instructions for accompanying the melody with a choreography. For each word, the hands are to be held in certain ways while the eyes follow their directions. At the halfway midpoint comes the crucial instruction: each individual singer must finish the rest of the choral at the speed of their own choosing.