Today we’ll conclude my exploration of music inspired by the moon, with a work I had no idea at all existed until just the other day when I was searching for a piece to wrap this mini-series up with…and as soon as I saw it, I realized that it’s one of the most obvious things in the world, and I should have assumed it existed somewhere. American composer Eric Whitacre, who has written a lot of wonderful choral music (and whom I have featured on this site before!), wrote a setting of the words from the iconic children’s book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I mean, you don’t get more iconic than that, do you?
(OK, though, before I present Mr. Whitacre’s piece, here is one of my favorite all-time bits from The Simpsons:
“Don’t make me tell you again about the scooching!”
OK, back to the real business at hand….)
Throughout this series I’ve heard a lot of interesting music about the moon, and it’s interested me to see the varying emotions the moon seems to inspire. For me, though, the moon is always a welcome sight, and its silver light always brings me a feeling of peace. That’s what Mr. Whitacre’s piece evokes for me most of all, and he captures the profound feeling of heading into rest that the book always made me feel back when I was reading it aloud to a very young daughter.
There’s a lot more “Moon Music” out there, obviously! This may well be an idea I revisit someday…but for now, here is Eric Whitacre’s “Goodnight Moon”.
