Music>SATB Choral
Three Songs of Faith
In 1999 I was commissioned by Northern Arizona University to write a set of choral works commemorating the 100th anniversary of their school of music. I chose three of my favorite E.E. Cummings texts and started writing. i will wade out, the first piece in the set, seemed to cry out with lush, neo-romantic harmonies. The third, i thank you God for most this amazing day, is such a beautiful and joyous poem that the music was at times almost effortless. It was the middle installment, hope, faith, life, love, that was causing me to lose sleep.
Writing a commissioned work can be tough, especially if it is for a big glorious occasion, and my first reaction is almost always leaning towards grandeur. I mean, for God’s sake, the school has been around for a hundred years, the least I can do is write something that will really bring the house down. This is exactly the mentality I was trying to force upon this set, and exactly the kind of thing that tends to get me all tangled up.
I will wade out is the first in the set of Three Songs of Faith, and was a joy to set to music. The text is so passionate, so sensual; I found it to be the perfect opening to a cycle of pieces about my own personal faith.
In hope, faith, life, love the original poem is actually quite long, with sounds of clashing and flying and singing, and calls for music that is vibrant and virtuosic, a real show piece. The more I thought about faith, however, the more introspective I became, and I modified the poem entirely to fit that feeling. I took only the first four words (hope, faith, life, love) and the last four (dream, joy, truth, soul) and set each of them as a repeating meditation. Each of the words, in turn, quotes a different choral work from my catalog, and its corresponding musical material comments on the word I set (i.e. the word “life” quotes the musical material from Cloudburst, where the text is “roots, trunk, branches, birds, stars”). Because I wrote it last, the middle movement even quotes the first and the last piece in this set on the word “soul.”
The 2009 revised edition of i thank You God for most this amazing day replaces the original edition, published in 2000, which is no longer available. Page 12 has been exchanged at the my request – the rest of the work remains as it was first published. The decision to rewrite a section of a work after publication has its own interesting story.
When I originally premiered i thank You God with Northern Arizona University back in 1999, I made a lot of changes during the few days I had with the choir before they first performed it. One section I didn’t change, and that I loved, was the text “now the ears of my ears awake, now the eyes of my eyes are opened.” For that first performance in 1999 it was just a simple chant-like round, and I felt that it elegantly set up the next section, a cluster-y meditation on the word “opened.” Then, literally the night before I sent back the final proofs for publication, I freaked. I thank you God was the third in a set of three pieces (the Three Songs of Faith), and it suddenly occurred to me that I could tie the whole set together by quoting the beginning of the first piece, i will wade out, at the end of i thank You God. So I quickly rewrote the “now the ears of my ears” section, echoing the first leaps in i will wade out, and sent it off to the publisher. I can remember feeling actual pride – a very ‘scholarly’ pride – for so brilliantly and effortlessly manipulating motivic material.
The piece was published, and a year later I hear the new version actually performed. I was horrified. Page 12 was ridiculously difficult, and I could see the otherwise excellent choir sweating just to make it sound natural. Much worse, thought, was this: it completely masked the meaning of the words. The text just became lost in the ‘clever’ writing, and the most important sentence in the poem just vanished in a fog of academic writing and… pride.
I conducted that version for years, trying every way I could think of to make it work. It never did, not even once. So when it was going to be recorded by the British ensemble Polyphony, I sent them the original version of i thank You God. That’s the one they recorded, and that’s the one I’ll do from now until the end of time. It’s so much more simple, and humble, and to my ears, the meaning of the text now explodes off the page. It was a great lesson for me, and I think of those measures every time I start to ‘overthink’ while I’m writing.
So – if you are conducting or singing i thank You God for most this amazing day, please know that I am most happy to have found my way back to the original and true version in today’s 2009 publication.
i will wade out
i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowersi will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darknessin the sleeping curves of my body
shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
will i complete the mystery
of my fleshi will rise
after a thousand years
lipping
flowersand set my teeth in the silver of the moon
E.E. Cummings, 1894 – 1962
hope, faith, life, love
hope, faith, life, love
dream, joy, truth, soul
E.E.Cummings, 1894 – 1962
i thank You God for most this amazing day
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)E.E.Cummings, 1894 – 1962
17 Comments
Ian McDougal on April 13, 2010 at 3:29 pm
These are some great pieces. I got to perform "hope, faith, life, love" with the U of Utah Singers this year, my first experience performing one of your pieces live (although I've loved your music for a while and was in the virtual choir video of "Sleep" over the summer). Wonderful experience and it's always an audience favorite!
If you're interested, here is a video of us singing "hope, faith, life, love".
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=wall&st…
Ian McDougal on April 13, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Woops, the link ended up weird.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1236156…
Courtney Lea K on April 14, 2010 at 6:39 am
…At 0:50-0:54 do I hear the beginning chords for 'A Boy And A Girl'? lol
Brad Sampson on April 14, 2010 at 3:44 pm
"Hope, faith, life, love" is a brilliant creation. I can't, however, find the original e e cummings poem anywhere. I appreciate the simplicity of both the text and music. Some day when I'm feeling bold, I'll find each song that is quoted and identify each section and how it's text relates to it's word…
Derrick on April 27, 2010 at 9:51 pm
to Brad Simpson,
Eric took the first four, and the last four words of the entire poem by e e cummings.
The poem in question is still a mystery to me – despite googling and pouring over his (cumming's of course ;P) poetry collection.
Hope this clears up a bit of the text behind the song. =)
Emily on May 1, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Thank you for your open-ness about pride as you talked about your revision of i thank You God. It is so great (and REFRESHING) to hear that you can identify when you have made a blunder in the name of pride and that you went and fixed it, acknowledging that sometimes genius ruins beauty.
I love that piece.
Emily on May 1, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Thank you for acknowledging pride in this history of I Thank You God! If more people admitted that they were prideful, and then changed their ways, this world would be a better place.
I love that piece.
Christian Whitley on May 17, 2010 at 9:06 pm
"i thank you God…" and Sleep are the 2 songs that influenced me into becoming a composer. Whitacre's music is just amazing.
Claudia on December 21, 2010 at 7:15 am
I love that line in "I will wade out":
in the sleeping curves of my body
The music and words just fuse together in some sort of perfect marriage.
RR on February 19, 2011 at 7:08 pm
I like the pieces, they form a good triptic. I especially like 'I will wade out', because it immediately reminded me of the Björk song 'Sun in My Mouth' with the very same text, from her brilliant album Vespertine. The two pieces should actually be performed together someday.
Herb Dimmock on February 20, 2011 at 6:48 am
I have bought a set of "I thank you God for this most amazing day" How can I get the modified page 12? I would love to substititue that into the piece.
Herb Diimmock
Renee Pawelko-Gabel on February 24, 2011 at 7:44 pm
I am proud to say that I was a member of the Shrine of the Ages Choir at NAU that debuted these works at the ACDA convention in 2000. What an incredible experience that was and I feel honored to have been involved! Thank you so much for sharing your journey of i thank you God. It’s so amazing to hear that it kept evolving long after and then it reverted back. I won’t ever forget the amazing reaction the audience had and the standing ovation!
Nicola Bullough on March 31, 2011 at 11:39 pm
We are performing 'I thank You God' in June, and I am desperately looking for some choral midi files (soprano line) to be practice at home. Any ideas? We (Lux Perpetua choir) have already performed 'A boy and a girl' and 'Sleep', so we are looking forward to this next challenge – we love singing Eric Whitacre, such a wonderful sound.
Thank you in advance,
Nicola (France)
eva on May 11, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I only discovered your music just today (I know, painfully behind the trend), when a friend posted your TEDtalk on my FB wall. This friend knows me well….I just cannot get enough.
Where can I find sheet music? I fantasized about conducting "Ii thank you God for this most amazing day" at my own wedding (should I ever have one).
Jennifer on May 14, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Mr. Whitacre,
We’re doing this in my high school Chamber Singers group and I seriously am in love with this piece. I love how you took the poem and translated it straight into music. I had a question about composing, with this piece and all of your other pieces as well, the words and music fit so perfectly together, clashes with words like shield in “Nox Arumque”, words like “light” paired beautiful chords in “Lux Arumque” , and saddness and peace with legato lines in “Sleep”. I know you have a writer that works with you at times, but I was wondering which normally comes first, the text or the music itself? Is it a collaboration throughout the music process? Thanks!
A young musician new to composing,
Jennifer
Morgan on May 15, 2011 at 4:13 am
I think that it would be amazing if "i thank You God" was the next virtual choir piece. It is stunningly beautiful, and I think that a slightly faster paced piece would be amazing if sung by thousands of people.
I am a young musician, and I have begun composing about a year ago, and your music has been inspiring me in many ways, how you perfectly mix the text and the music, it feels like the poems were written to be set to your music.
Mike Robertson on October 19, 2011 at 7:23 pm
After some searching and with the help of some fellow teachers I found the complete poem.
“Poem 69” from 73 Poems by E.E. Cummings.
I won’t post the entire text since his copyright is pretty well guarded. Hopefully that helps.