Lux Aurumque

Countless composers have been drawn to the subject of Christ’s nativity but few have invested the scene of the holy child’s birth with greater intimacy and reverence than Eric Whitacre. “Lux Aurumque” for unaccompanied choir (2000) rises from a simple chord to produce complex harmonies that shimmer and fade like stars in the firmament. The four-minute piece presents a meditation on “light, warm and heavy as pure gold” and the angel voices that surround and sooth the infant Jesus. Its glacial progress is touched by a profound sense of loving kindness and graced by a spine-tingling sound world formed by kaleidoscopic shifts of choral texture. Whitacre’s score includes parts for divided sopranos, altos, tenors and basses and a soaring line for solo soprano, heard early in the work. Its closing pages are stripped back to the bare essentials of harmony and pulse to leave a seemingly eternal echo of the angelic choir from the first sopranos and gentle repetitions of the word “natum” (“born”) from all other voices.