Cloudburst

Cloudburst (in German: Wolkenbruch ) is one of the best-known pieces by the composer and conductor Eric Whitacre , which musically depicts the course of a thunderstorm.

Emergence

Whitacre composed Cloudburst at the age of 21 in the fall of 1991 while studying at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Whitacre wrote the original version, published in 1995, for choir with piano accompaniment at the suggestion of the conductor Jocelyn Kaye Jensen . The variant for wind orchestra was commissioned in 2001 for the Indiana Bandmasters Association and was premiered on March 16, 2002 at the Indiana All State Festival . The text comes from the poem El Cántaro Roto by Octavio Paz . Whitacre dedicated both versions to J. K. Jensen.

In 2007, a choral version of Cloudburst was nominated for a Grammy Award .

procedure

The first part of the piece of music is a cappella , simple dissonances in the melody are replaced by tone sequences that are interpreted by each singer at their own pace and use. This is followed by a shrill baritone solo , which is again followed by an a cappella section. This then rocks up under crescendo to the climax of the piece, the beginning of the actual thunderstorm ( The Cloudburst ).

The cloudburst

Before the thunderstorm, relative calm returns for a few bars, then the actual thunderstorm begins with a lightning strike, followed by thunder. In the choir version, these effects are created with bells that the singers have previously kept hidden from the audience. The acoustic impression of rain is created by snapping fingers, accompanied by the piano, to the end of the piece - the audience is thus included. Little by little, all singers stop singing and all instruments stop.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Music / Symphonic / Cloudburst (winds) on Eric Whitacre's homepage ( memento of the original from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Music / Choral / Cloudburst on Eric Whitacre's homepage ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.