notes: Eternity in an Hour

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

from Auguries of Innocence, William Blake (1757-1827)

Can you capture the sound of eternity? And what might that sound like? Those questions occupied US composer and conductor Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) for his latest composition, Eternity in an hour. The occasion was a composition commission from the BBC Singers: they asked the composer to write a work to mark their 100th anniversary. To try to capture that juncture in time, Whitacre went in search of a text that transcends time, as a counterbalance to the rush of our existence. He ended up with Auguries of Innocence by English artist William Blake, a poem that has occupied his mind since he was a teenager: 'Time seems to be fragmenting into almost puny moments these days; into a TikTok-like reality. So my idea was to make an hour of music based on the four opening lines; to do exactly what Blake forces us to do and look for that eternity, in one hour's time.'