Cloudburst – Eric Whitacre

Grammy award winning musician Eric Whitacre is one of most popular and widely
performed composers of contemporary classical music today.1

Born in Nevada in 1970, Whitacre learnt piano as a child and in his high-school years played
trumpet in a marching band and synthesizer in a techno-pop group. He studied composition at
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and completed a master’s degree at the Juilliard School
of Music, studying composition under John Corigliano. His first Wind Orchestra piece Ghost
Train achieved widespread popularity, and at 23 Whitacre became a full-time professional
composer. Since then, he has been honoured with awards from the Barlow International
Composition Competition, the American Composers Forum and the American Choral
Directors Association (ACDA). He has also received commissions for, among others, the
BBC Proms, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and The
King’s Singers. Whitacre was the Composer in Residence at the University of Cambridge
from 2010-2015, and is currently the Artist in Residence with the Los Angeles Master
Chorale.2

During his studies at Julliard, Whitacre was part of a group called the ‘New Optimists’, who
shared the ideology of innovating, yet “writing music that people actually want to hear.”3
This philosophy is evident in Whitacre’s use of quasi-tonal harmony, where he creates
complex sounding chords that remain accessible through their basis on triadic structures.4
Shane Lynch contends that a lack of strong rhythmic or melodic devices makes such
sonorities the centrepiece of many Whitacre works. Lynch also identifies a similar focus on
sonority in the works of Morten Lauredsen and René Clausen, and categorises this prominent
style of American choral music as Neo-Impressionism.5

Cloudburst is one of Whitacre’s most well-known works and an effective summation of his
choral composing style. Written in 1991, it won first prize in the 1993 American Choral
Directors Association “Composers of the Future” competition. It is scored for SATB choir
and percussion and programmatically illustrates a desert cloudburst. The text is based on the

1
Eric Whitacre, "Eric Whitacre: Biography (Long)," accessed 29th July 2019.
https://ericwhitacre.com/biography/long.
2
Ibid.
3
Phillip A. Swan, "In His Own Words: The Choral Music of Eric Whitacre from 1991-2004," Open
Access Dissertations (2016), accessed 30th July 2019, h
ps://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/1610.
4
Angela Hall, "Added-Tone Sonorities in the Choral Music of Eric Whitacre," All Theses and
Dissertations (2012), accessed 30th July @019, h ps://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/737.
5
Shane M. Lynch, “Music Historiography and Useful Style Histories: The Case for the Evolving Era
of Neo-Impressionism and Its Influence on American Choral Music” (Arts University of Washington,
2008), accessed 31st July 2019.
Spanish poem “The Broken Water Jar” by Octavio Paz, which was translated and adapted for
the composition.6

The piece is structured in binary form, with A comprising of three subsections that develop
the main theme and a secondary motif, interspersed with two sections featuring soloists. The
B section, titled “The Cloudburst”, builds a cluster backed by aleatoric ringing bells to a
climactic thunderclap, where the rain storm is imitated by a thunder sheet, bass drum and
snapping of fingers. I personally feel that the structure is too varied, with too many ideas
being introduced in a short space of time. In the first minute for example, an initial motif is
introduced, followed by an aleatoric section, some homorhythmic chord changes and
answering melodic motion, a baritone solo and then a new theme. Despite this however, I
think the overarching binary form is very effective in building to and from the climactic
“Cloudburst” section.

My favourite compositional device of Cloudburst are the colourful sonorities. The opening
gesture of two chords is a recurring motif throughout the work, and can be analysed as a D
major chord followed by a D dominant 7 sharp eleven, both in second inversion. However, to
my ear the pedal A suggests the second sonority is an A minor chord with added tones;
effectively a stacked A–harmonic minor scale with an omitted second degree (B). With this
interpretation, the two sonorities can be identified to function as a harmonically decorated
IV6 – i, which aligns with the view of music theorist Angela Hall. Hall contends that
Whitacre’s use of colourful chords is the result of tone-additive processes rather than
extensions. This refers to the ornamentations of basic triads with ‘colour’ tones that don’t
follow conventional voiceleading or resolution, but still follow an underlying tertian
harmony.7 Consequently, the music is accessible in its tonal framework, but the added tones
give a wonderfully rich yet harmonically ambiguous sound to the piece.

I think Cloudburst is a great composition due to this harmonic language and use of body
percussion (finger snapping) that effectively evoke its programmatic title. I also enjoy how it
achieves a balance between innovation and accessibility, so a wide range of audiences can
enjoy this wonderful music.

6
Eric Whitacre, "Cloudburst ", accessed 29th July 2019. https://ericwhitacre.com/music-
catalog/cloudburst#.
7
Hall.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hall, Angela. "Added-Tone Sonorities in the Choral Music of Eric Whitacre." All Theses and
Dissertations (2012): 737. Accessed 30th July @019. h
ps://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/737.

Lynch, Shane M. "Music Historiography and Useful Style Histories: The Case for the
Evolving Era of Neo-Impressionism and Its Influence on American Choral Music."
Arts University of Washington, 2008. Accessed 31st July 2019.

Swan, Phillip A. "In His Own Words: The Choral Music of Eric Whitacre from 1991-2004."
Open Access Dissertations (2016): 168. Accessed 30th July 2019. h
ps://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_dissertations/1610.

Whitacre, Eric. "Cloudburst " Last modified 2019. Accessed 29th July 2019.
https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/cloudburst.

Whitacre, Eric. "Eric Whitacre: Biography (Long)." Last modified 2019. Accessed 29th July
2019. https://ericwhitacre.com/biography/long.