Eternity in an Hour (US Premiere)

For years and years, I’ve been transfixed by [William Blake’s] text: what I felt I was seeing in the music beneath Blake’s words was a kind of longing for the present. It’s almost a road map that he created for how to be truly in the moment. And it starts with that opening line: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” Blake, in his ever-mystical way, invites the reader to enter into the infinite world of a grain of sand. Even there, in the smallest, most insignificant thing, lies our entire experience. This displays a deep understanding of the dense, fractal, ephemeral world that exists at every level of our known universe.

I decided to take those four lines and then see if I could create an hour-long piece that was, in a way, a journey deeper and deeper into that grain of sand. And hopefully find at the end of it that there is an essential magnificence that is as grand and beautiful as anything large or seemingly phenomenal. Even in the simple, there is perfection.

— Eric Whitacre

Sung Texts

Eternity in an Hour
by Eric Whitacre
Text by William Blake (“Auguries of Innocence,” c. 1803)

I. To see a World
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. 

II. In a Grain of Sand
In a Grain of Sand 

III. And a Heaven
And a Heaven

IV. In a Wild Flower
In a Wild Flower 

V. Hold Infinity
Hold Infinity

VI. In the palm of your hand
In the palm of your hand

VII. And Eternity
[Wordless]

VIII. In an hour
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.