hope, faith, life, love

This recording of choral works borrows its title from the five-part mass penned by Stephen Paulus that opens the disc, but there are a host of smaller works packed in behind that share a similar hovering, timeless quality. Leaving the formal Latin of mass behind, Eric Whitacre delves into the spiritual by meditating on just a few words borrowed from the first and last lines of a poem by e.e. cummings: “hope, faith, life, love…dream, joy, truth, soul.” The piece follows a predictable dynamic arch, peeking with a sort of celebrative fury on joy, but it would take a pretty jaded heart to resist this stripped down emotional urge into the light.

—MS