Eric Whitacre Analysis

Eric Whitacre is a contemporary choral composer who is known for his unique compositions that utilize harmonies as well as dissonance. The particular piece that I had a wonderful aesthetic experience with is Hope, Faith, Life, Love. This beautiful song has a total of eight words which are Hope, Faith, Life, Love, Dream, Joy, and Truth. These words are the first and last four words of a longer poem by E.E. Cummings. The beauty of this piece lays in three different places, E.E. Cummings poetry, Whitacre’s interpretation of the these words, and the performance of the choir which is influenced by the particular director. I have personally worked on and performed this choral arrangement in the past with my own choir director, though for the purpose …show more content…
It has eight simple words that guide the listener throughout many different facets of the human experience beautifully. The words themselves have a different meaning for each listener, though they are all universally regarded as some of the most beautiful experiences a human can experience. Hope is repeated many times, with a growing sense of fullness. This flows into faith which is sung lightly which gets quieter with each repetition of the word. This flows into life which is sung in such a way that expresses the ups and downs in life through the crescendos and decrescendos and changes in pitch. The next human experience sung is Love. This is one of the most beautiful parts because it repeated like a heart beat with voices that are singing while some others are whispering. The flowing of love into a quiet dream is beautiful in that love and dream seem to overlap. Dream steadily gets louder and fades in Joy. Joy, the next emotion sung, is sung with a level of euphoria. One of the most striking portions of the song is the section dedicated to Truth; it interrupts Joy with a level of beautiful dissonance. As it is repeated, it settles and becomes a beautiful harmony. As Truth becomes softer and quieter Soul grows in volume. It is sung harmoniously and joyously but settles into a Somber harmony which fades into …show more content…
The design of the song has no true function, meaning it holds no inherent purpose.It simply exists to be beautiful, but its beauty possesses no purpose. When listening to Hope, Faith, Life, Love there seems to be an underlying purpose that serves the human soul, since this cannot be explained it holds purposiveness but not purpose. The fourth Kantian moment is it exemplifies a necessary satisfaction. In other words, this song exemplifies beauty through use of common sense. There is an innate sense that the listeners will have when witnessing this choral performance that the song is beautiful. While there may be no strict definition listeners will have of beauty or be able to express why this piece satisfies the requirements to be considered it, the song will be deemed undeniably