Sleep is perhaps the most popular of my collaborations with Eric Whitacre.  Eric was commissioned by a woman in Texas to write a setting of Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods in memory of her parents, who had died in an auto accident.  Eric composed an exquisite piece of music, and premiered the work.  Later, when seeking publication rights, the Frost estate denied him permission to use the poem until it moved into public domain in 2037.  Faced with the possible death of the piece, Eric contacted me and asked me to replace the text with another poem, one which matched the structure, rhyme-scheme and vowel sounds of the original Frost text.  Wow.

Replacing one of the most beloved poems in the English language was a scary task, to say the least.  I chose the title Sleep because Eric’s original setting had ended on a haunting meditation on the word “sleep”--”and miles to go before I sleep...”which was too beautiful to sacrifice.  Another line, “both dark and deep” also simply had to remain in the text.  While I was trying to come up with ideas for the piece, my son, then three years old, would not settle down for bed.  That got me remembering what it was like to resist sleep as a child--all the games you play with yourself about monsters under the bed, or spooky shadows in the window, etc.  and the idea for Sleep was born.  I worked furiously, seized by the inspiration of the challenge, and gave Eric the finished poem the next morning!

Since then the work has been performed and recorded endless times.  It has taken on a meaning more “dark and deep” for me since the death of my wife. Now when I hear the piece I think of her, especially in the final moments of her fight.

This work has become a standard part of the choral repertoire garnering performances and praise all over the world. The National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Program includes this piece in its list of required repertoire for program concerts, calling it a significant work of American choral music, and among the best of [Americas] cultural and artistic legacy. For more on this program see http://www.nea.gov/grants/APPLY/AMChoral.html.  Sleep has sold over 80,000 copies in sheet music since its publication. It appears on the Grammy-nominated recording Eric Whitacre: Cloudburst and other Choral Works (Polyphony, Stephen Layton, cond. Hyperion Records ©2006) and on Eric Whitacre: The Complete Acapella Works (BYU Singers, Ronald Staheli,cond. Arsis Records ©2002).

SLEEP

©2001 by Charles Anthony Silvestri

The evening hangs beneath the moon,

A silver thread on darkened dune.

With closing eyes and resting head

I know that sleep is coming soon.

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,

A thousand pictures fill my head,

I cannot sleep, my mind’s a-flight;

And yet my limbs seem made of lead.

If there are noises in the night,

A frightening shadow, flickering light;

Then I surrender unto sleep,

Where clouds of dream give second sight.

What dreams may come, both dark and deep,

Of flying wings and soaring leap

As I surrender unto sleep,

As I surrender unto sleep.

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