After Silence

Thinking of Hamlet's last words, "the rest is silence," Aldous Huxley writes,

. . .all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed. The rest is always and everywhere silence.

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

After Silence is the title of the new album by Voces8. It celebrates their 15th anniversary, which just makes me regret that I wasn't aware of them until this year. Many thanks to the friend and colleague who shared their music with me.

The album is divided into four sections: Remembrance, Devotion, Redemption, and Elemental; but as the inexpressible for Hamlet is his own death, the pieces included in each section touch on mortality or irrevocable loss. As you'll hear, the music is both elegiac and uplifting, thanks to how superbly the voices blend and how beautifully the dynamics are shaped by artistic director Barnaby Smith.

From Remembrance, "Drop, Drop, Slow Tears," music by Orlando Gibbons, words by Phineas Fletcher, both Shakespeare's contemporaries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZTFLZiZUSo

Drop, drop, slow tears, And bathe those beauteous feet Which brought from Heaven The news and Prince of Peace. Cease not, wet eyes, His mercy to entreat; To cry for vengeance Sin doth never cease. In your deep floods Drown all my faults and fears; Nor let His eye See sin, but through my tears.

Voces8 has been accused of being almost too smooth, too technically perfect, which is a curious complaint. Of course, smoothness can shade into blandness if it is pursued to the exclusion of all other values, but Voces8 performs a wide-ranging and challenging repertoire. No one listening closely to what they are doing (and aware of the difficulty of achieving it) is likely to think that their performances are bland.

Unlike some other British a capella ensembles, Voces8 does not focus exclusively, or even, perhaps, primarily, on music of the Renaissance and Baroque. They have commissioned many new works, and the majority of the pieces included in After Silence (including all those in the final section, Elemental) were written in the 20th or 21st centuries. Well-known composers such as Arvo Pärt and Jonathan Dove are represented, but for me the most compelling music on After Silence is by composers I hadn't known before, such as Philip Stopford (his version of "Lully, Lulla, Lullay" is gorgeous and sad) and Eric Whitacre.

From Devotion, Whitacre's "A Boy and A Girl," the words a translation by Muriel Rukeyser of "Los Novios" by the Mexican poet Octavio Paz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLoncQ9Euik

Stretched out on the grass, a boy and a girl. Savoring their oranges, giving their kisses like waves exchanging foam. Stretched out on the beach, a boy and a girl. Savoring their limes, giving their kisses like clouds exchanging foam. Stretched out underground, a boy and a girl. Saying nothing, never kissing, giving silence for silence.

Tendidos en la yerba una muchacha y un muchacho. Comen naranjas, cambian besos como las olas cambian sus espumas. Tendido en la playa una muchacha y un muchacho. Comen limones, cambian besos como las nubes cambian espumas. Tendidos bajo tierra una muchacha y un muchacho. No dicen nada, no se besan, cambian silencio por silencio.