This Marriage

A Cappella

This Marriage by Eric Whitacre

"If I got married in a chapel of some kind with amazing acoustics, I would hire a small ensemble to sing this as I processed down the aisle. It's absolutely gorgeous!"

This is a truly beautiful piece.

The poetry itself is a perfect blessing for a wedding, sweet and optimistic and formal but not to the point of insincerity. It feels warm. Nothing could make it better except to be set to fitting music.

Whitacre's composition is, for the poem, appropriately solemn. The pace is slow, so that you might appreciate every note. The harmonies weave a thick tapestry of sound, and the melody soars, at times, way up into the heavens.

More than anything, I'm weak for the dynamic shifts. How can you not get emotional whenever it grows from a soft, soft section, where the voices are gossamer like light through a stained glass window, to a fortissimo wave of sound that swells to fill the entire room? It's magical.

If you like this, you should definitely check out some of Whitacre's other stuff. The things he does here with the pandiatonic clusters and the homorhythm are found throughout many of his works, so they often have a similar sound.

We did a piece of his, Sleep, back in high school, and we struggled so much when we split into like seven vocal parts. I can't imagine trying to sing something

Aside from his compositions themselves, Whitacre is a pretty cool dude. He's known for these "virtual choirs" where he connects singers from all over the world by accepting online video submissions and layering them to create one cohesive performance. It's quite something.

Here's one of his virtual choir videos. The piece is Sleep, the one I mentioned above.

Overview:

Genre:
Choral

Favorite Lyrics:
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.

I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.

Bonus:

(source)