The evening hangs beneath the moon A silver thread on darkened dune With closing eyes and resting head I know that sleep is coming soon
Upon my pillow, safe in bed A thousand pictures fill my head I cannot sleep my minds a flight And yet my limbs seem made of lead
If there are noises in the night A frightening shadow, flickering light Then I surrender unto sleep Where clouds of dreams give second sight
What dreams may come both dark and deep Of flying wings and soaring leap As I surrender unto sleep As I surrender unto sleep
Through sleep we
find true tranquility and peace. Progressive composer, Eric Whitacre has
utilized the strength found in music from the heart, to utterly transform the
exterior of the classical music genre in the twenty first century. Classical music,
once often major in tonal structure, deriving from a given form only to resolve
from a dissonant chord to a consonant one, has become a place for modern
composers to freely take human emotion and create music that best resembles the
anguish, suffering, beauty and passion felt deep in the hidden caverns of the
heart regardless of where that takes the appearance of modern composition. Whitacre
stands as a living testament to the inherent strength of music when in college
he, for the first decided to attend the first music class of his life because
his roommate had told him of the exquisite beauty found in the soprano section
of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ (UNLV) Concert Choir. From Eric
Whitacre’s first performance with UNLV’s Concert Choir of Mozart’s tour de
force proclamation of life and death, “Requiem”, his life was changed forever.
Eric Whitacre has went on after his time at UNLV to attend the Julliard School
of Music, win a Grammy award, become one of the most popular and performed
composer alive in 2012 and continue to write, direct and explore the influence
of music on humans. Performing and listening to the music of Eric Whitacre, is
a truly haunting, un-forgettable occasion due to his ability to draw on the
tender chords of our sullen heart and let our personal experiences in life
shape us as individuals and sing. Through the eloquent imagery woven into Eric
Whitacre’s choral tapestry, “Sleep”, we surrender ourselves to slumber, leaving
all inhibitions behind, accepting our final truths in rest.
As
our eye lids make the final descent to rest upon our image swollen eyes – what
thoughts are blessed to grace the cratered tableau of the mind in the few
lasting moments of the previous day? What burdens
do we bear in our final moments of conscious life and what conflicts have we already
resolved in time to let them drift away, as will our cognitive connection to
the real world through our slumber? It is what we bring with us to our exploration
of the mind through dreams that will characterize the fragile perplexity of
sleep. To enter a state of deep slumber and accept that all conscience worries must
be temporarily released from the foreground of the mind to be replaced with
spacious dreams and vast serenity. In
the last waking moments before sleep, Eric Whitacre, leaves us as readers waiting
to be consumed by the full shadow of rest, “beneath the moon”, resembling a “silver
thread on darkened dune” through our inhibitions and aspiring glow (1/2). From
the first line in stanza one, Whitacre has us captured in the endless dune of a
charcoal night and the glimmering, longing truth found in a slivered moon.
Looking out on the desolate landscape of night, we are able to see the natural
beauty of Mother Nature shine from the small rays of a merely giant star. Our
only connection to reality and the environment of the real world seems like it
soon will be swallowed by the embrace of an encompassing night’s fall. With the
moon’s truthful glow upon are barren souls, we are able to rest our weary head,
and “know that sleep is coming soon” (4).
The
second stanza, in Eric Whitacre’s “Sleep” leads us to our final resting point, where
we prepare ourselves for the tranquility laden on a pillow and bed that we call
our own. Under our covers, wrapped tight, we lie “safe in bed”, because “upon
my pillow” lies more then a warm place to sleep (5). “Upon my pillow” lays the
possibility for me to enter a world of creative exploration, discovery and
unforeseen magic (5). And yet we find ourselves countless nights in bed being
tied down to memories and thoughts of life, unable to get rest because “a
thousand pictures” continue to “fill my head” (6).Coming to our pillow we bear the unspoken responsibility
to let sleep consume the body through acceptance of the beautiful fate we must
bear in rest. The consistent rhyme structure found in “Sleep” with every first,
second and fourth line in the stanza rhyming, with the third being set in
parallel contrast to such q distinct form, leads to further a understanding
that the reliable and consistent nature of sleep is always available to us if
accept that in final slumber our heart and mind are naked as they are in death
and birth.
In
the last stanza of his masterpiece, “Sleep”, Eric Whitacre expounds on the profound
journey of exploration in rest, and the depth of possibility found in slumber –
after we accept that we bear no conscience control after we close our wearisome
eyes and let the “darkened dune” of sleep consume our heart and mind (2). The impeccable image of our own dreams
manifested in seraphim-like figures a flight in “soaring leap” leads us to
believe that the final rest and state of tranquility we strive to attain, is
one to be described only in the company of angels (14). As we finally sacrifice
our intentions and “surrender” our sleepless existence “unto sleep” we become
whole in god’s darkened monastery of silence, in much resemblance of our
fragile moments of entrance into this complex humanity we live (15/16).
The
peace found in Eric Whitacre’s work of genius, “Sleep”, expounds not only on
the musical notation inscribed deep in our hearts of why and how we choose to
live every waking moment, but also testifies through his music of his
envisioned atonement and peace found in our last moments before sleep. The
lyrics of “Sleep” draw on the very core of human emotions due to our own
personal experiences in fear, and our comfort and uneasiness found in our
inability to ever truly envision what our final rest will subsist of until we
shut our eye lids for that last time and let our souls and dreams soar in leap,
with wings extended far past what the mind can even fathom in our restless
existence on earth.These telling
moments in where our body, weighed down by life’s responsibility transforms
into a vessel of thought and true acceptance of our final rest, depicts the
human soul and body awaking for the first time, and at the same time taking its
last waking breath of air.
The
liminal state of being, captured in the musical landscape of “Sleep” by Eric
Whitacre, speaks to us in our most naked and vulnerable state of life. Through
Whitacre’s profound music, we are reassured that as we lay our “resting
head” in our final slumber we are not to be frightened by the unfamiliar
darkness and shapes living in our mind. This "darkened dune" is one of true
tranquility and will be home to our wandering souls, in our last breaths of
acceptance and rest (2).
