Northern Arizona University's school of music chose the passionate young choral composer Eric Whitacre to commemorate its 100th anniversary with a new set of choral pieces. Whitacre chose a trio of poems by e.e. cummings for his texts, designating them three Songs of Faith. He was clear that the song cycle would somehow represent his own "personal faith," and his reflections on the mysteries of life and being, rather than the dogmas of any particular religion, and both his cummings texts and the eventual musical setting couch such a personal reflection quite well. The first poem of the cycle, i will wade out, almost sings itself in lush neo-Romantic images of sensual exploration. The second, hope faith life love, comes from a much longer cummings poem, but Whitacre decided (after, as he describes it, losing a lot of sleep over the setting) to only use the poet's first four words and last four, treating the middle song as a series of brief meditations on these deep concepts. In the third poem, i thank you God for most this amazing day, the poet rejoices in the staggering opening of nature and claims that the "eyes of my eyes" have been opened.

Whitacre's musical setting of the three poems has gone through some changes, but remains remarkably unified in tone, despite the different experiences being explored in the poetry. I will wade out adopts a potentially sexual undertone, as the "fingers of smooth mastery" enter the "sleeping curves of my body," though the overall sense is of lovely experiments in living. The middle set of eight meditations follows many of the first's musical features, taking a similar tempo, basic tonal center, harmonic vocabulary, and more consonant harmonic veneer. Hope faith love life does, however, allude outward to a number of other pieces Whitacre has written, and as this movement was composed last, it briefly quotes both the first and last movements. Whitacre changed the music of the final movement just before publication, but has since asked performers to restore the original version. In i thank you God, the otherwise unified musical substance of the cycle finally shifts, at the moment of the opening of eyes. After describing God as "unimaginable," a simple chant-like passage ushers in an almost imperceptible harmonic modulation, and a final reverent meditation (full of rich dissonance) on the concept of eyes being opened, presumably to the unimaginable beauties of the spirit.

© Timothy Dickey, Rovi