Above: Eric Whitacre returned to Australia to conduct Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ VOX. Image: Keith Saunders
Eric Whitacre has reached global stardom, blending genres, bridging listening gaps between so-called ‘classical’ and ‘other’ musics plus their audiences. His commitment to choral music and his musical atmospheres being evocative, meditative, communicative, highly creative and ingeniously reactive to a chosen text was displayed excellently in this recent Sydney Opera House concert.
This concert, more than just a way to share Whitacre’s most recent work, Eternity in an Hour, an extended, slow-release decoration of William Blake poetry, or a pure Whitacre showcase, also included twentieth century works from Edwin London as well as our own Sarah Hopkins.
All works presented required a virtuosic, flexible and open minded group of musicians to work with Whitacre in creating vivid environments that employed athletic and controlled choral singing, ‘choralography’ and effective, extended techniques. VOX impressed with their first half sung completely from memory and an Australian premiere of Eternity in an Hour that embraced Whitacre’s extended elaboration on each grain of text in William Blake’s words from Auguries of Innocence.
This premiere, taking up the entire second half of the concert, was a commanding version. VOX, who had introduced modern techniques to the audience already during the concert’s first half, joined forces with cellist Julian Smiles, pianist Tim Cunniffe and Eric Whitacre conducting as well as elaborating upon his dissection and slowed-down trek through the poetic imagery through the use of synthesizers.
Above: Eric Whitacre played synthesizers during the Australian premiere of his work, ‘Eternity in an Hour’. Image: Keith Saunders.
This new work is an experimental, intellectual and retro romp. All musicians on stage worked well together, and Whitacre’s joy in working with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs was well in evidence as the group forged the latest version of eternity within our modern world’s speed-reading, overlaps of time and utterance.
The instrumental layers from Julian Smiles and Tim Cunniffe also hopped on board with Whitacre’s vision, with some beautiful sonorities offered, no matter how fragmented their motifs or how demanding the repetition. And acoustic clarity across the renovated Concert Hall stage made the performance recording-ready as an exciting, Antipodean rendition of this poetic ‘please relax world’ vision. The build towards the final fragment of Blake text, and the closing repetitions once at the climax brought the premiere to a resonant close.
VOX handled the programmatic and pictorial demands of Whitacre’s established writing equally well. From the concert’s first half, they intoned his closeness of vocal line, his delicate articulations and inimitable droplets of sustained thought or environmental colour.
Whitacre’s diverse output, and his ability to put programmatic or vivid imagery into gentle motion were exquisitely showcased as VOX traversed texts in Latin (Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold)) as well as Spanish (Cloudburst). The challenges of execution, texture and momentum in these shorter, effective bursts.
Cloudburst was intoned with a fine Latin-American swagger, plus fine choral rain sound effect, a finger-click precipitation that echoed in a neat nuage of audience participation also. The Latin lilt in describing light during Lux Aurumque held a spotlight up to the capabilities of this young choir, gilded in pre- Whitacre direction and rehearsal by the work of Dr Elizabeth Scott.
Above: Cellist Julian Smiles and pianist Tim Cunniffe joined VOX and Eric Whitacre for the concert’s premiere of ‘Eternity in an Hour’. Image: Keith Saunders.
We were blessed in the selection of non-Whitacre compositions by the visiting artist. Stillness, colour and calm exuded during Australian Sarah Hopkins’ Past Life Melodies (1991). Its imagination and non- English text combining meditative chants and First Nations song sat well in this programme and easily lulled a sense of hope and contentment-craving into the audiences now.
Choral technique, listening and a progressive outlook maintained the experimental format and incredible shimmer required in Edwin London’s Bach (again) after J.S. Bach ‘Come, sweet death, arranged by Rhonda Sandberg. VOX provided an expertly warm, balanced Chorale vibe during this clever work’s innocent enough opening.
The choir’s control in the multiple-part, smear-at-a-split-second piece to follow provided an exemplary slow-motion born-again close canon. This effect in the hands, heads and hearts of the VOX-Whitacre partnership shimmered, shocked and stunned still, some fifty-one years after its composition in 1974. The choir also handled the ‘choralography’- sequences of hand gestures to signpost their individual journeying through the phrases from many different starting points.
All atmospheres and trajectories in this varied first half, as well as indeed in the entire retrospective-plus-premiere shimmered, danced and displayed our environment in Whitacre’s unique meditative word painting as this Sydney Philharmonia Choir and guests rose to all expressive challenge required. The crowd at the concert’s conclusion broke out of the calm cocoon the sonic soothing had lulled them into-and went wild.
