Voices of Light

While watching The Passion of Joan of Arc I fell pretty deeply in love with the soundtrack. After doing some research into the composition, I was surprised to discover that there is actually a lot of background and nuance in the score. The soundtrack is called Voices of Light and was composed by Richard Einhorn, who has received critical acclaim from all over the world. Voices of Light is meant to be played during a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc, but Einhorn stated that he also wanted it to be “a stand­alone work that would speak to various aspects of Joan's life and legend” (Einhorn). He decided to write it after stumbling upon a copy of the movie when researching short avante garde films for a completely different project. After being blown away by the movie, he decided to create a piece that would pay tribute to Joan’s life and achievements.

Einhorn did a lot of research in order to capture the authenticity of Joan’s life. He traveled to sites of Joan’s life in order to get inspiration. He even recorded the sound of the church bells from Domremy and incorporated them into the piece. On his website, he stated that he chose to include singing in the score because Joan heard voices. All of the vocal sections, which are sung in old languages like Latin, Old French and Italian, are taken from the writings of medieval female mystics. Einhorn chose these writings to express what Joan stood for in her mission, as well as to address themes of medieval spirituality in general. The example that Einhorn includes on his website is the score for the torture scene. He wanted to explore the idea of physical pain being a religious practice that led to spiritual growth or piety. These lyrics were taken from the writings of a female penitent, Blessed Angela and a heretic named Prous Boneta. The chorus of this piece repeats the words “glorious wounds” in order to make this point.

One of the most interesting inclusions in Voices of Light is some of Joan’s actual letters. Three of the tracks took their lyrics from some of Joan’s military letters that we’ve read in class. For example, the track called “Victory at Orleans” incorporates the text of two Joan’s letters. The first part of the song, taken from Joan’s letter to the city of Tounai, describes her accomplishments in the battle of Orleans. The second part of the track describes the victories that she plans to achieve in the future, and is taken from her letter to the city of Troyes. Einhorn chose not to have a single vocalist sing these parts, but instead had both a soprano and an alto sing them simultaneously in order to show how much mystery still surrounds Joan. 

The consideration, research and thought that would have gone into creating this piece is astonishing and it definitely shows in the music.

Here is the link to Einhorn's website: http://www.richardeinhorn.com/vol/vollinernotes.html