VOCES8: Only in Sleep by Ēriks Ešenvalds
VOCES8 performs Ēriks Ešenvalds’ Only in Sleep, filmed at the VOCES8 Centre in London. The solo is sung by the group’s newest member, Virginia Grabovsky.
Looking back towards the half-remembered world of childhood, Sara Teasdale’s words explore memory, friendship and the way in which people lost to time can return to us in dreams. Ešenvalds surrounds the text with rich, gently shifting harmonies, creating a sound world suspended somewhere between waking and sleep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWaDnTQJ4qQ
Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.
Only in sleep Time is forgotten—
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild—
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?
