Listening Recommendations: Nox Aurumque by Eric Whitacre

Hi all,

Apologies for the late post. Here's this week's listening recommendation:

Nox Aurumque's composer Eric Whitacre's latest work, and was only recently premiered in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 22 Mar 09. He (or his compatriots) has very kindly posted a pretty high quality video on youtube!

Here's a quote from his official blog regarding the piece:

---Start of Extract---

Nox Aurumque (Night and Gold) is the piece that just received its premiere in Minneapolis last month. As the name implies, it is sort of a ‘companion’ piece to Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold).

In writing it, I wanted to echo some of the musical material in Lux Aurumque, while at the same time filling it with themes from Paradise Lost. I asked Charles Anthony Silvestri (Sleep, Leonardo Dreams, Lux Aurumque, Her Sacred Spirit Soars) to write me an original poem in Latin, and as usual, he knocked it out of the park. Here’s the translation:

NOX AURUMQUE

Gold,
Tarnished and dark,
Singing of night,
Singing of death,
Singing itself to sleep.
And an angel dreams of sunrise,
And war.

Tears of the ages.
O shield!
O gilded blade!
You are too heavy to carry,
Too heavy for flight.

Gold,
Tarnished and weary,
Awaken!
Melt from weapon to wing!
Let us soar again,
High above this wall;
Angels reborn and rejoicing with wings made
Of dawn,
Of gold,
Of dream.

Gold,
Singing of wings,
Singing of shadows.

---End of Extract---

The piece, as Mr Whitacre puts it, sounds like a haunting reminder of his other pieces as he borrowed a couple of motifs from his other works, e.g. Paradise Lost, Lux Aurumque. *For more on this, visit his blog post*.

The piece will be published once the other choirs who commissioned this work perform it! :)

Enjoy!