Two of my favorite artists collide: Robert Frost, poet, and Eric Whitacre, modern day composer. Eric Whitacre wrote an AMAZING piece of choral music entitled, "Sleep." The original text was set to Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. You can read the entire story from Eric Whitacre's perspective on his website, and you shall draw your own conclusion. Essentially, Whitacre was sued by Frost's estate for using Frost's poem as the "Sleep" text without receiving permission from Frost's estate. Whitacre's mistake was that he (naively) assumed the text was of public domain. I find myself on "Team Whitacre" as Frost is no longer around to settle the issue himself--instead those in charge of his estate have deemed this as a violation. Perhaps Frost would have felt honored. ....We'll never know. I believe Whitacre was so enamored with the beauty of the text that he wanted to honor Frost using his words set to Whitacre's music. A seemingly beautiful merger of text and melody. In our modern day world, one must be extremely careful of copyright infringement; too sue or not to sue are not even questions. Too far? You decide. http://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/satb-choral/sleep
SLEEP with the original Robert Frost text:
SLEEP with the original Robert Frost text:
SLEEP with the NEW text, set by Charles Anthony Silvestri--written to match the original text as not to have to change the music Whitacre had already so brilliantly written.