Lux Aurumque – Westminster Chorus - Confessions of a Chord Junkie

(Composed by Eric Whitacre)

There’s something about me I need to share with you. I *love* bass. Bass voice, bass instruments, the lower the better. I even sing bass myself in a women’s barbershop chorus. Music voiced in a lower range is so pleasing to my ears and washes over me in soothing waves of happiness. To me, it sounds richer, warmer, and yummier.

Why am I telling you this? Well…I bet you thought, when you read the title of the song that I was going to be reviewing Lux Aurumque by the Eric Whitacre Singers ; however, I much prefer this version by Westminster Chorus.

Interestingly, Westminster Chorus is a world-renowned men’s barbershop chorus based in the Los Angeles area. They’ve continually pushed the envelope with barbershop singing, and scored the highest ever score in a Barbershop Harmony Society international competition, in 2010 in Philadelphia, a record that still stands today. (Please do listen to this clip until at least 1:10 – the section from 0:37 to 1:10 is one of the most jaw-dropping passages of chord progressions I’ve ever heard in my life.)

Being barbershop singers first and foremost, they have been trained in that barbershop technique of utilizing Pythagorean tuning. While I don’t really understand this mathematical explanation of it, I do know from my own experience that in barbershop singing, we sing the second, third, sixth, and seventh notes in the key a few cents sharper than the other notes – this is what creates that lock and ring and, most importantly, that overtone that is created when a chord is perfectly in tune. This is particularly important with the third, which is the note most sharpened in barbershop, as nobody, NOBODY wants to hear an attempt at a major chord with an ever so slightly flat third. *shudders*

But back to Lux Aurumque as performed by Westminster Chorus.

In true Eric Whitacre style, this song is full of complex chords, and this is why this barbershop training to adhere to Pythagorean tuning, I believe, helps Westminster Chorus achieve great success in this arrangement full of long sustained chords full of clashes and complexity. Starting with a simple C# minor chord, we move into a…chord that I can’t quite name. C#m7add9/G# is one of my guesses…and I think that’s one of the reasons that this song appeals to me so much. The chords are so unexpected, so complex, that my brain really has no choice but to just stop and listen and enjoy. At 0:26, the descant swells up to a G# which starts off as the root of the chord, and as the chord moves back to C# minor, becomes the fifth. The choice to have this high descant G# (incidentally, the highest note of the entire song), on the word “Lux” (which translates to “light”) is brilliant composition.

This song is full of delicious clashes – a hallmark of an Eric Whitacre arrangement. Two or three or sometimes even more notes a half-step apart creates an interesting dissonance and when a choir sings these clashes, both parts have to sing them with the utmost confidence, each being just as present as the other, otherwise it has the potential to sound like one voice just doesn’t know their part. Listen as the two highest voice parts clash delightful against each other at 0:42, and again at 1:08.

The lyrical line at 0:55, “gravisque” (“and heavy”) is mirrored in the descending chord progression here, coming to rest at a perfectly balanced, perfectly sung, perfectly weighted open fifth F# chord at 1:12.

Just like earlier, the descant pops up again on the word “pura” (“pure”) at 1:21, but this time starts as the fifth of the B7add9/F# and then drops to a C# to become the fifth in the next chord of F# minor, making your brain say things like “heyyyy…this sounds vaguely familiar…didn’t we hear something similar at the beginning of this piece…?” Our brains like the unexpected, but they find comfort in familiarity; it makes them more willing to seek out and accept the unexpected.

Now that we’ve had a bit more comfort and familiarity in that straight-up F# minor chord, our brains are looking for a bit more excitement again, and find it in some more satisfying clashes at 1:37 and 1:43 and very strongly at 1:56 in the upper voices, then settling us back down with a soothing, F# major chord.

We then return to some more familiarity at 2:06 with the same chord progression as the beginning of the song, with the word “canunt” (“they’re singing”). Our brains are being comforted…could we be gearing up for something interesting here…?

Starting at 2:30, and continuing to the end of the entire song, spanning almost one whole glorious minute, we have the greatest hanger in the history of all hangers. That ever so soft and light G#, gracefully transitioning us from the key of C# minor to the key of C# major , floating above the flowing chords like a ray of sunshine poking through the clouds after a rainstorm, like the angels above are literally showering us with golden light, shifts from being the fifth in the first chord of the new key (C#/G#) (2:42) to being the fourth in the second chord (2:46) (someone help me out here…D#m7add(2)(4)?). Normally when the fourth is added to a chord, the third is omitted, but this being an Eric Whitacre composition, allllll the notes are included to create a delicious, slightly dissonant yet still warm and comforting chord, full of expectation and suspense and tension, waiting to be resolved to the next chord. Each time this second chord is sung, it is held for only half the measure, releasing and reminding us that that amazing G# hanger is still being held, giving it time to shine. It’s given an entire measure to ring on its own, just before coming to rest gently along with the rest of the C# major chord at the end. To maintain that note so unwaveringly (obviously there are a few singers on this note with a perfectly scheduled staggered breathing pattern), with the rest of the chorus coming in with that C# major chord at pianissimo is a testament to incredible breath control and overall artistry.

Lux, lux
Lux, lux
Lux, lux
Calida
Calida
Gravisque
Gravisque
Gravisque
Pura
Pura velut aurum
Canunt et canunt et canunt
Et canunt angeli
Canunt, canunt, canunt molliter
Natum, natum, natum modo natum

Light, light
Light, light
Light, light
Warm
Warm
And heavy
And heavy
And heavy
Pure
Pure like gold
They sing and sing and sing
And the angels sing
They sing and sing and sing softly
To the newborn babe

Lux Aurumque – Westminster Chorus

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