Sometimes the genesis of a now-popular piece can be almost unbearably poignant in light of the situation on the ground now. Such is the case with the popular Five Hebrew Love Songs with music by Eric Whitacre and lyrics by Hila Plitmann. Both composer and lyricist have been extremely open about the meaning of the words. Here, for example, is a relevant paragraph from Whitacre’s website, describing how the songs came about in 1996 as the result of a request from the violinist Friedemann Eichhorn:
Because we were appearing as a band of traveling musicians, ‘Friedy’ asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for piano, violin and soprano. I asked [then-girlfriend] Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few ‘postcards’ in her native tongue, and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps, and we performed them [Plitmann sang the soprano part] for the first time a week later in Speyer.
“Hila” is the acclaimed singer and actress Hila Plitmann, who married Whitacre in 1998. Here’s how she described her process of writing the ‘postcards’:
The “Five Hebrew Love Songs” are very meaningful and personal. These five songs were written about innocent, beautiful, and simple love. This was my first time writing poetry for a musical composition, and I had no idea what Eric wanted or what I would write; but with a recital pending in Germany (with our friend and superb violinist Friedemann Eichhorn) I ended up spurting them out in an hour and a half. They are mini poems, a bit like haikus, with inner rhyming, and are reminiscent of our relationship and romance. These have been a work of inspiration for me throughout the years, and I have recently continued writing poetry for my own songs that I hope to release one day.
Don’t you just love her words “spurting them out”?
How did her then-husband, the composer Eric Whitacre, describe the process?
“Each of the songs captures a moment that Hila and I shared together.”
Plitmann and Whitacre met as students at Julliard and married in 1998, divorcing in 2017; I mention this item not as gossip but because to me this fact adds an extra depth of meaning to the texts: just because something is beautiful and touching doesn’t mean that it will last. And the work has taken on a life of its own that surely was not anticipated back in 1996 when it was written. What started out as a small, private project that this couple did for their friend grew into a many-branched and popular work that has been arranged and re-arranged for various groups over the years. My own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale in the Denver area, is performing the SATB version with strings on October 13-14, 2023. (If you live in the area, visit our website to get tickets.)
Whitacre himself has conducted a number of performances. Speaking for myself, and only for myself, I would find it almost unbearably painful to hear these words and music, written with such intimacy, now out in the world while the original relationship that inspired them has been ended. Both Whitacre and Plitmann, though, are most certainly artists who can transcend such memories and see the pieces as independent from their own lives.
For each poem I’m going to give the Hebrew (transliterated into English) with English words underneath and then the standard translation, with some alternate text given in places. I’ll then give a bit of a summing-up. But (and here I am putting on my English teacher hat) please bear in mind that these brief poems are lyric poetry, not narratives. They cannot be distilled down into some kind of logical structure. As I’ve said in many posts on this site, if you could totally explain a poem, then there would be no reason for the poem. (Sort of like explaining a joke.) Sources for texts and commentary are given at the end of this post.
And bear in mind that my own ideas about the poems are based on the words of Whitacre and Plitmann themselves: I’m not romanticizing or fantasizing, although I may do a bit of speculating here and there
I. Temuná
(Image, Form, Picture)
Temuna belibi charuta;
(A picture) (in my heart) (is engraved)
Nodedet beyn or uveyn ofel:
(Wandering) (between) (light) (and between) (darkness)
Min dmama shekazo et gufech kach ota,
(From) (silence) (like this) (to) (your body) (takes) (to her)
Usarech al panaich kach nofel.
(And your hair) (on) (your face) (like this) (falls)
A picture is engraved in my heart,
(An image is graven)
Moving between light and darkness:
A sort of silence envelopes your body,
(Something like silence embraces your body,)
And your hair falls upon your face just so.
(And your hair tumbles over your face.)
There’s not much to add here, is there? I’m kind of thinking of a scene with the beloved asleep, with light and shadows playing over him. He is silent, and his hair is rumpled. She stands and looks at him so intently that it’s as if the image is engraved on her heart. Perhaps the moon is shining, and the shadows of branches outside the window move in the wind over his body. Who knows? We’re free to see anything we want to in the poem, to create our own meaning, to remember the images we have engraved in our own hearts.
II. Kalá Kallá
(Light or Gentle Bride)
Kalá kallá kula sheli
(Bride) (light or gentle) (is all) (mine, or is all to me)
U’vekalut tishak hi li
(And lightly) (will kiss) (she) ([to] me)
Light bride
(Gentle bride)
She is all mine,
And lightly
(gently)
She will kiss me!
One must be reminded here that these are Plitmann’s words, not Whitacre’s. He’s not the one who is saying that his bride is “all mine”; that is how she described herself. He says in the sheet music notes, “Kalá Kallá (which means ‘light bride’) was a pun I came up with while she was first teaching me Hebrew.” So maybe he did say to her, “Can you include that pun I like with kalá/kallá?” But she’s the one who chose to phrase the lines as written. Whitacre has the high voices sing “la” lightly and repeatedly in marked contrast to the lower voices’ lines. It’s an effective musical presentation of the words.
III. Larov
(Mostly)
“Larov,” amar gag la’shama’im,
(“Mostly,”) (said) (the roof) (to the sky)
“Hamerchak shebeyneynu hu ad;
(“The distance) (that is between us) (it [is]) (without end;)
Ach lifney zman alu lechan shnayim,
(But) (before) (a while) (came) (up here) (two)
U’veyneynu nishar sentimeter echad.”
(And between us) (remains) (centimeter) (one.”)
“Mostly,” said the roof to the sky,
“the distance between you and me is endlessness;;
But a while ago two came up here,
And only one centimeter was left between us.”
What was in the poet’s mind as she wrote these words? Unless she chooses to publish an annotated version, explaining all of her words and imagery, we’re left with this little piece of dialogue to parse out the best we can. There’s a conversation going on between the earth (symbolized by the roof) and the sky, with a connection being made between these two realms by the lovers (“two”). I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say that Plitmann may have been thinking as she wrote of the flat roofs of her native Israel, where people often go at night to look at the stars and even to sleep if it’s cooler. There are the two, standing together and gazing up at the sky, lost in a haze of their new love, and it’s as if earth and heaven are united. Too sappy, metaphysical, or Hallmark card-y? Perhaps. The image, and the feeling, are probably too evanescent to be pinned down.
IV. Éyze Shéleg!
What snow!
Éyze shéleg!
(What) (snow!)
Kmo chalamot ktanim noflim mehasham’im.
(Like) (dreams) (little) (falling) (from the sky.)
What snow!
Like little dreams
Falling from the sky.
Whitacre says, “The bells at the beginning of Éyze Shéleg! are the exact pitches that awakened us each morning in Germany as they rang from a nearby cathedral.” Here’s the interesting thing: There are no bells in the poem itself. It’s just about snow falling. But isn’t there something truly evocative about snow falling while bells ring? I don’t mean in any Christmas-y way at all; just the image itself. Whitacre has the soprano soloist whisper the actual words; every other note is pure onomatopoeia. These pitches “awakened us.” Another intimate scene. And the bell notes are in the realm of what is called “aleatoric” or “indeterminate” music, at least somewhat, as the pitches are set but not the specific number of “bongs” that each part is to sing.
V. Rakut
(Tenderness)
Hu haya male raku; Hi hayta kasha
(He) (was) (full of) (tenderness;) (She) (was) (hard [or difficult])
Vechol kama shenista lehishaer kach,
(And as) (much [as]) (she tried) (to stay) (thus,)
Pashut uvli siba tova
(Simply) (and without) (reason) (good)
Lakach ota el toch etzmo,
(He took) (her) (into) (himself [or his body])
Veheniach
(And set her down)
Bamakom hachi rach.
(In the place) (the most) (soft.)
He was full of tenderness;
She was very hard.
(tough)
And as much as she tried to stay thus,
(And she tried hard to remain thus,)
Simply, and with no good reason,
(Though plainly for no good reason;)
He took her into himself,
And set her down
(And bid her rest)
In the softest, softest place.
The courtship between the composer and the lyricist is recreated for us in these brief lines: He was the pursuer, she the pursued. Why was she so “hard” or “tough”? Was this a general characteristic, or was she this way only towards him? We don’t know.
There’s an interesting pivot point in the line “Simply, and with no good reason.” In the standard translation given above, the punctuation implies that it was his pursuit that was “for no good reason.” But the alternate translation makes more sense, I think: it was her hardness that was “for no good reason,” not his love and pursuit. In the end, her hardness can’t stand, and she’s drawn into the “softest place” of his love.
Now that I’ve worked my way through all five lyrics, here’s the original, in the author’s handwritten Hebrew:
And now for the usual plethora of videos:
First, one of Plitmann pronouncing the Hebrew with Whitacre looking on (adoringly, I must say)–
Then a performance by Plitmann as it was originally written for soprano, violin and piano:
And a choral performance directed by Whitacre:
Sources used in this post:
Quotations from Eric Whitacre are from the sheet music itself and also from his website: “Five Hebrew Love Songs–Note from Composer”
Quotation by Hila Plitmann from “Five Hebrew Love Songs” Hyperion
Word-for-word transliteration/translation from the website of the Grace Chorale of Brooklyn, no specific authorship given.
Alternate translations included in parentheses under the standard one are from the website of Edward Lein.
