Lux Aurumque

Although the Romans are no longer with us - except in Rome, of course - their language is far from dead. The phrase lux aurumque means literally light and gold. Eric Whitacre's version is a poem by Edward Esch which was translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri, set to music by Whitacre, and sung to the world by his Virtual Choir. In April 2010, the composer explained to the BBC Radio programme The Strand how the project had come about. He was told about a young American girl Britlin Losee who had recorded the soprano line to his composition "Sleep", and on listening to it he said: "It was an amazing experience; the first part of me that was struck was the composer part... as I watched, she was so shy and so sweet and so open...there was this intimacy about her performance..." He was so impressed that he posted the same video on his website and asked for requests. He was literally deluged. This led to his producing a Virtual Choir recording of "Sleep," and inspired him to bigger and greater things. The end result was a one-hundred and eighty-five voice rendition of "Lux Aurumque" with contributions of the complete range of male and female voices from around the world. He began by making a video of himself conducting the music (in complete silence), then added one of himself playing the piano accompaniment, then he posted instructions to his ad hoc choir, and invited people to sing their own parts. He said astonishingly that both times - for "Sleep" and "Lux Aurumque" - this resulted in perfectly balanced choruses, and he didn't reject a single submission. Although all the voices are singing in harmony, this short video took six months to complete.

The author of the poem appears to be something of an enigma. Its translator wrote: "There has been some confusion regarding the elusive poet Edward Esch. As far as I know there is no substantive information on record about him. Some have said that Esch died long ago, while others claim they saw him introduced and congratulated at a 2005 choral concert given by maestro Weston Noble and the Luther College choir. Eric doesn’t remember where he got the poem." Silvestri translated it as long ago as 2000. Of the English original of "Lux Aurumque" he wrote: "A lovely and simple text... I was instantly struck by its simple beauty."