Sleep (arr Nowlin)
Eric Whitacre (arr. Ryan Nowlin)
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General Info
Year: 2000 / 2016
Duration: c. 5:00
Difficulty: VI (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Walton Music Corp.
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown
Instrumentation
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Eric Whitacre’s composition Sleep was originally commissioned as an a-cappella choral work in 1999 by mezzo-soprano Julia Armstrong to commemorate the lives of her parents who, after more than fifty years of marriage, had died within weeks of each other following an auto accident. The work was to be set to Armstrong’s favorite poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Legal difficulties over the use of Frost’s poem led Whitacre to approach his good friend, poet Charles Anthony Silvestri, who wrote a beautiful original poem that seamlessly fit the music Whitacre had already composed. The poem was inspired by Silvestri watching his son fall asleep.
Sleep
Charles Anthony Silvestri
The evening hangs beneath the moon,
A silver thread on darkened dune.
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon.
Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head.
I cannot sleep, my mind’s a-flight;
And yet my limbs seem made of lead.
If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light,
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dreams give second sight,
What dreams may come, both dark and deep,
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep,
As I surrender unto sleep.
Reprinted with permission
- Program Note from U.S. Marine Band concert program, 14 December 2016
Media
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- United States Marine Band (Washington, D.C.) Clarinet Choir (Ryan J. Nowlin, conductor) - 14 December 2016 (2016 Midwest Clinic) *Arrangement Premiere Performance*
Works for Winds by This Composer
Adaptable Music
- The Seal Lullaby (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Ambrose) (2011/2021)
- Sing Gently (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Mösenbichler-Bryant) (2020/2021)
All Wind Works
- Cloudburst (1991/ tr. 2001)
- Deep Field (2015/2016)
- Equus (2000)
- Fly to Paradise (arr. Shaw) (2003/2012/)
- Ghost Train (1995)
- Godzilla Eats Las Vegas (1996)
- Goodnight Moon (arr. Mösenbichler-Bryant) (2011/2017)
- Libertas Imperio (2009)
- Lux Aurumque (2005)
- Noisy Wheels of Joy (2002)
- October (2000)
- October (arr. Miller) (2000)
- October (arr. Ritz & Sullivan) (2000/2005)
- The Seal Lullaby (2011)
- The Seal Lullaby (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Ambrose) (2011/2021)
- Sing Gently (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Mösenbichler-Bryant) (2020/2021)
- Sleep (2000/2002)
- Sleep (arr. Nowlin) (2000/2016)
- Sleep, My Child (arr. Gershman) (2013)
- Star-Spangled Banner (as arranger) (1814/2018)
Resources
None discovered thus far.