Asleep.

Sleep by Eric Whitacre

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).