Light and Gold (Artful Devotion)

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. . . . The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

—John 1:3b–4, 9

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SONG: “Lux Aurumque” | Original English text (“Light and Gold”) by Edward Esch (born 1970), translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri, 2000 | Music by Eric Whitacre, 2000 | Performed by Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, 2010

A professional studio recording by the Eric Whitacre Singers was released on the 2010 album Light & Gold:

Lux,
Calida gravisque pura velut aurum
Et canunt angeli molliter
modo natum.

Light,
warm and heavy as pure gold
and angels sing softly
to the new-born babe.

“The Virtual Choir is a global phenomenon, creating a user-generated choir that brings together singers from around the world and their love of music in a new way through the use of technology. Singers record and upload their videos from locations all over the world. Each one of the videos is then synchronised and combined into one single performance to create the Virtual Choir.” With 185 singers from twelve countries, “Lux Aurumque” was the Virtual Choir’s first project. Four other songs have since followed, the latest one featuring more than eight thousand singers, ages four to eighty-seven, from 120 countries.

To listen to another composition by Eric Whitacre that I’ve previously featured on the blog, see “i thank you God for most this amazing,” a choral setting of an E. E. Cummings poem.

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, cycle A, click here.