Disc Details

Contents

Work Title	Composer
Five Hebrew Love Songs	Eric Whitacre
Nox Aurumque	Eric Whitacre	Listen
The Seal Lullaby	Eric Whitacre	Listen
The Stolen Child	Eric Whitacre	Listen

Reviews

• Recording of the month
  
  Memo to all choral directors: if you still haven't been bitten by the Whitacre bug, then beg, borrow or buy this disc immediately! ...highlights include the gorgeous Seal Lullaby and the chilling The Stolen Child. ...this glowing disc deserves the widest exposure. Simply glorious!
  Malcolm Riley, Gramophone, 01 December 2010
• 'The Stolen Child'...is the most immediately impressive. Here Whitacre deftly weaves the entreating faerie voices of Yeats's poem with that of the 'human child' in closely interlocking textures.
  'Five Hebrew Love songs' ... these are limpidly imagined miniatures, beautifully recreated by Whitacre in an SATB arrangement with string quartet and tambourine accompaniment.
  Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine, 01 December 2010
• This disc is a revelation. [...] Throughout the recital’s generous 73 minutes, performances are distinguished by the naïve, little girl sound of Whitacre’s chosen sopranos, the clarity of the diction, and the very personal touch of the composer. The texture is so personal, the quiet passages so intimate, and the silence so profound, it’s as if we have been invited into Whitacre’s inner sanctum. The Five Hebrew Love Songs (1996), for example — settings of poems by the extremely gifted high-flying soprano Hila Plitmann, who was then Whitacre’s girlfriend and is now his wife — come across as the true love offerings they are. And when a work written for The King’s Singers is performed by The King’s Singers, as it is on this disc, the word “definitive” has meaning. [...] Whitacre’s gorgeous music seems like holy balm. I, for one, am grateful for the experience.
  
  Jason Victor Serinus, San Francisco Classical Voice, 01 November 2010