Eric Whitacre: Eternity in an Hour premiere at BBC Proms
The BBC Proms hosts the world premiere on 4 September of Eric Whitacre’s major new work, Eternity in an Hour, drawing upon mystical texts by William Blake for choir, strings, piano and electronics.
Eric Whitacre’s Eternity in an Hour is unveiled at a Late Night Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in London at 10.30 pm on 4 September. The ambitious hour-long work, which expands upon the opening four lines of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, is premiered by the BBC Singers, strings of the 12 Ensemble and pianist Christopher Glynn, conducted by the composer.
Whitacre is collaborating with electronics artist Lesjamusic to create a sonic experience enveloping the iconic venue.
The world premiere of Eternity in an Hour in London is broadcast by its commissioner, BBC Radio 3, and will be available internationally on the BBC Sounds app. Further performances with co-commissioning partners in the US, Australia and Belgium will be announced shortly.
Whitacre describes how his new work aims to reflect how Blake explores “that elusive state where past and future cease to exist and all that remains is a profound sense of wonder in even the most ordinary objects. My hope with Eternity in an Hour is that the music will help the listener (and the performers, and candidly, me) experience a little bit of that awe and timelessness.”
What drew you to William Blake’s poetry?
“In writing Eternity in an Hour, I decided to use only the first four lines of Blake's Auguries of Innocence:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
“For years and years I've been transfixed by that text: what I felt I was seeing in the music beneath Blake's words was a kind of longing for the present. It's almost a road map that he created for how to be truly in the moment. And it starts with that opening line: To see a World in a Grain of Sand. Blake, in his ever-mystical way, invites the reader to enter into the infinite world of a grain of sand. Even there, in the smallest, most insignificant thing, lies our entire experience. This displays a deep understanding of the dense, fractal, ephemeral world that exists at every level of our known universe.
“I decided to take those four lines and then see if I could create an hour-long piece that was, in a way, a journey deeper and deeper into that grain of sand. And hopefully find at the end of it that there is an essential magnificence that is as grand and beautiful as anything large or seemingly phenomenal. Even in the simple there is perfection.”
How do the electronics interact with the choral parts?
“The goal is to make this seamless. I'm not thinking of it as electronics accompanying the choir and the strings and the piano. It's more a dance between all of the instruments and, in some cases, the voices. The choir may sing something, or the strings play something, and we take those sounds, bring them into the electronics, manipulate them, and then send them back out. In other cases, we do the opposite when the synths play something, and this is reflected in the choral parts with the vocalists almost becoming effects units. They take what they're hearing in real-time and then they either granularise the sound - breaking it into little pieces to make clouds - or they hear the sounds and then sing them in reverse, or shift the pitch up or down - the way that you would with synthesizers and effects units. So, there is a constant dialogue between all the musicians on stage. Hopefully it creates something that sounds both very ancient and very new at the same time.”
Forthcoming Whitacre highlights include The Gift of the Magi presented at Carnegie Hall on 26 November by Distinguished Concerts International New York and a Christmas concert with the Eric Whitacre Singers at St John’s Smith Square in London on 14 December. Future new works include Murmur for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, to be premiered at Carnegie Hall on 17 May 2025.
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