Eric Whitacre: Five Hebrew Love Songs: Ensemble: Parts

Arranged for Soprano voice Violin and Piano.Violin part available separately: CH75240-01.Note from the composer:In the spring of 1996 my great friend and brilliant violinistFriedemann Eichhorn invited me and my girlfriend-at-the-time Hila Plitmann (a soprano) to give a concert with him in his home city of Speyer Germany. We had all met that year as students at the Juilliard School and wereinseparable. Because we were appearing as a band of travelling musicians 'Friedy' asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for Piano Violin and Soprano. I asked Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few'postcards' in her native tongue and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps and we performed them for thefirst time a week later in Speyer.In 2001 the University of Miami commissioned me to adapt the songs for SATB chorus and string quartet and the Efroni Choir in Israel commissioned me to adapt them for SA Violin andPiano leaving me now with five(!) different versions of the same work: SATB and String Quartet; SATB Violin and Piano; SA and String Quartet; SA Violin and Piano; and the original Soprano Violin and Piano.Eachof the songs captures a moment that Hila and I shared together. 'Kalá kallá' (which means 'light bride') was a pun I came up with while she was first teaching me Hebrew. The bells at the beginning of 'Éyzeshélleg' are the exact pitches that awakened us each morning in Germany as they rang from a nearby cathedral.These songs are profoundly personal for me born entirely out of my new love for this soprano poetand now my beautiful wife Hila Plitmann.Eric Whitacre

Initially composed for SATB this collection of Five Hebrew Love Songs is available here for women's voices (SA) with Violin and Piano accompaniment. Like the SATB version the suite is set for Piano and Violin but may also be performed with string quartet.

In this suite - inspired by a trip to Switzerland - each song is a postcard capturing lush romantic moments in full. The songs are dedicated to Jerusalem born Hila Plitmann - poet of the beautiful text and the composer's wife.The suite is scored for SATB chorus with either string quartet accompaniment or piano and violin.