Water Night

This song was what first drew me to Whitacre. Every moment of this piece is absolutley enthralling and singing it makes me feel like my feet are coming off the ground, bellissime.

To me, this song is about the shadow- as in the Jungian shadow / self. The part of you that you hide from others - and especially from yourself. I listened to this song almost daily for over a year before it hit me.

i think this song is about making love. in poetry, horses are usually a phallic symbol. whitacre shapes and molds it into a beautiful obra. this is my fave from polyphony

This song is painfully beautiful. I am singing it this year for chambers. It's breathtaking.

I hate to be the one who just asks questions, but i wanted to know what this song means...I've heard from a few people something about a sexual innuendo, but i have no idea how to decode this poem from there. It's by Octavio Paz, if that helps anyone.

it was breathtaking it took our breath away! i had to do it for chorale chamber choir last year and wow was it ever challanging! but it sounded so amazing

@densflux
No - this is about hard times and sadness, about when you hold it in, and then when you finally release it... I just sang this song tonight at the OHS Spring Concert... probably one of my favorites we ever did! (:

This information was found at http://nettspansk.uib.no/litteraturbok/escritores/paz/index.php?getfile=texto (and the translated to english using Google translator). This description is referring to the original poem Agua Nocturna by Octavio Paz: "The original title of "Water Night" was "Night". With this title, Peace is connected to a long tradition of "night" in visual art, poetry and music. The common meaning of the word "night" is "belonging or relating to the night." In the musical tradition, this term is associated mainly with the Romantic period and the great collection of 21 evening of Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). In the Spanish-American poetry are also an abundant number of "night", especially in the period of modernism. The atmosphere of "Water Night" is a night life that the landscape merges with the human body. The poem consists of a series of images that connect and are repeated throughout the poem. The three key words are: night - eyes - water. These words form the center of the poem, both formally and thematically. Eroticism, as in many other poems of peace, plays an important role. Through the sensual images, the boundaries between "self" and the poem you are cleared."

The first line in the poem i believe reflects the intensity of the night because it is make a very brave and noble creature like a horse tremble. The second line shows that the darkness is sleeping and hidden and not yet revealed. The third line shows that the darkness is in YOU and it can be seen in YOUR eyes and just like the horse you fear it because there is a horse trembling in your eyes The fourth line once again shows that the darkness is secret as in "secret water." The fifth sixth and seventh lines show how the water is hidden in the shadow and is stored up in the well of your eyes and haunts your dreams or thoughts you cant control. The eighth ninth and tenth line show that the when you are alone and nobody is there to watch (silence and solitude) your true self gets strength and draws power from those dark waters and the two little animals that drink in your eyes are the silence and solitude because the little and can sneak around without being noticed by your heart which is fundamentally good. The tenth eleventh and twelfth lines show that when you release the darkness the darkness flows outward invading others and pushing others away. The thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth lines show that if you cut off the darkness (close your eyes) a different beautiful water will "fill you from within" and wash out the other dark water. the final line my favorite because it shows that the night and the darkness "bring wetness to your soul", when something gets wet it becomes heavier and so the darkness is a heavy burden on your soul. but that is only my interpretation

OK! Here is what I believe it to mean.

A Night with a sword that Knows and is alert to his surroundings like a horse that is in fight or flight mode when what it see does not know friend or foe. Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,

Water Flows and knowing what will happen or is going to happen and it is all going to be ok. Jesus sleep in the ship when the rest though they were going to die. Knowing what water does and can do. It finds a way. Night with eyes of water in the field asleep.

Do you know that water flows and when you fight the current do you tremble. For what opposes you are you fearing in you can not beat when all you need to know is the secret that water flows so water will find your way. Go with it. And direct it to produce power for you instead of something that holds you back. Use the residents to power your future.

Is in your eyes, a horse that trembles is in Your eyes of secret water.

...