If the message embedded in a poem is its key reason for existing, then this becomes complicated when we are presented with music – even settings of those very words – instead of the print on the page. Here, therefore, is a CD that sounds simply magnificent, yet is devoid of meaning in the bookish sense that Whitacre’s commitment implies.
But what a wonderful mixture he provides to make the point! Eleven varied texts are selected from sources as ancient as biblical writings, up through the 13th century to e.e. cummings and contemporary writer Charles Silvestri. The music of Whitacre, who has become, at the age of 39, one of the most performed composers of his generation, brings new drama to these texts, holding them in real dramatic tension. You can really feel the power the composer evokes in manipulating high and low, strong and light, one against the other, back to back. Disparate they may be, but these pieces effectively merge into one long celebration of the quality of the collective voice, beautiful enough to give the spine a tingle, and an object lesson in how stirring and moving the human voice can be.
What Whitacre has done with rare skill and artistry is transmute the meanings of words into their embodiments as sounds. At least one special challenge, then, and Whitacre has mastered it.
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