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.