BERNSTEIN: Chichester Psalms / On the Waterfront

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O Lord, my heart is not proud nor my look haughty; I do not aspire to great things or to what is beyond me; but I have taught myself to be contented like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child am I in my mind. Dr. Hussey was apparently concerned lest Bernstein feel restricted by the ecclesiastical parameters of the festival or the awesomeness of the Cathedral venue. Chichester Psalms was commissioned for the 1965 annual choral festival at Chichester Cathedral, Sussex, UK. The world premiere took place on 15 July, 1965, at the Philharmonic Hall, New York, with the composer conducting. He subsequently attended the first performance of the original version for all-male choir on 31 July, 1965, at Chichester. Why do nations assemble, and peoples plot vain things; kings of the earth take their stand, and regents intrigue together against the Lord and against His anointed? The work was commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival at Chichester Cathedral by the cathedral's Dean, Walter Hussey. [2] However, the world premiere took place in the Philharmonic Hall, New York, on 15 July 1965 with the composer conducting, followed by the performance at Chichester on July 31, 1965, conducted by the cathedral's Organist and Master of the Choristers, John Birch. [3] [2]

This year, to celebrate Leonard Bernstein's centenary, the Chichester Psalms will once again be performed in the Cathedral on Saturday 24th November. This performance promises to be a major highlight of the year's celebrations.Chichester Psalms, although a comparatively short work (less than 20 minutes in duration) is one of Bernstein's most popular pieces and provides a good introduction to his writing. It is full of Bernsteinian dramatic contrasts. It utilises his trademark lively, asymmetrical rhythms, often with five or seven beats to the bar; his angular melodies with large, surprising leaps; his placing of accents where least expected; his use of speech rhythm in song. The text is the original Biblical Hebrew, which Bernstein sometimes daringly manipulates to great dramatic effect. Moreover, the sprouting ecumenical spirit of the mid-1960s was beginning to find its reflection in some Anglican Church circles, and the prospect of Psalm settings by the composer of the Kaddish Symphony probably seemed timely as well as perfectly appropriate to its more liberal elements. (Similar strains of receptivity to ecumenical considerations and Judaic roots could also be found—then, or shortly thereafter—in some progressive congregations within the American Episcopal Church, the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. At New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, for example, the seat of the American Episcopate, regular worship services—even on Christmas eve—have included the pronouncement in its original biblical Hebrew of the Judaic monotheistic credo, sh’ma yisra’el...) The offer of the Chichester commission came during Bernstein’s sabbatical year from the New York Philharmonic, just as he was in the throes of disappointment over the miscarriage of a project on which he had been working, a Broadway musical show based on Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of Our Teeth. “The wounds are still smarting,” he wrote to fellow American composer David Diamond in the beginning of 1965. “I am suddenly a composer without a project.” He thus welcomed the opportunity the Chichester commission provided, and he proceeded to compose the work in New York in the spring of that year. The result appears not only to have leaned melodically and rhythmically on its composer’s Broadway proclivities, but, as Dr. Hussey had assured him would be welcome, on actual moments of his earlier stage music. As Bernstein’s biographer Humphrey Burton and others familiar with Bernstein’s theatrical music have observed, the second movement contains, in the lower voices, an adaptation of a passage from the Prologue to West Side Story, which is heard now to the words of Psalm 2 ( lama rag’shu goyim ul’umim yeh’gu rik?). And material derived from his recently shelved drafts and sketches for the aborted Skin of Our Teeth project was recycled and accommodated to Psalm verses in all three movements. Moreover, Burton demonstrated that Bernstein’s choice of specific Psalms and verses was informed by their potential adaptability to the rhythm and cadence of lyrics that had already been written for that musical show by the celebrated team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. After the death of his wife, Felicia, in 1978, Bernstein retreated from performance engagements to focus on composing. He worked on various projects, none of which made it to completion, until he received a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in April 1980. With two film adaptations and many successful stage runs, West Side Story is Bernstein’s best-known work by far. A collaboration with lyricist Stephen Sondheim and director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, it’s considered by many to be one of the greatest musicals of all time.

Unlike a good portion of the music he composed (but did not complete) during his sabbatical, Chichester Psalms is firmly rooted in tonality. Bernstein commented during a 1977 press conference, “I spent almost the whole year writing 12-tone music and even more experimental stuff. I was happy that all these new sounds were coming out: but after about six months of work I threw it all away. It just wasn’t my music; it wasn’t honest. The end result was the Chichester Psalms which is the most accessible, B-flat majorish tonal piece I’ve ever written.” Again, from the poem submitted to the Times:Susan Lewis: Why The Unusual Chichester Psalms is Quintessential Leonard Bernstein wrti.org May 25, 2018 When it came time to sing it in front of the Maestro in rehearsal for the first time, I was petrified and could barely squeak out my part. He was very encouraging, even for the short time I sang. At a break, I was bold enough to ask to speak with him about the solo. He was kindness and patience itself, giving me a mini-coaching on each note of my little snippet. This whole experience was just icing on the cake of the already mountaintop experience of singing under his baton for this amazing concert. Pope Paul VI: After Hearing Chichester Psalms at the Vatican, 1973 The second movement begins with the boy soloist, accompanied by harp, serenely setting forth the opening lines of Psalm 23. As the Psalm is taken up by female voices, however, Bernstein has the male section of the chorus sing verses from Psalm 2 (“Why do nations assemble, and peoples plot ...”—a text familiar to British audiences through Handel’s Messiah) to much more angular and agitated music, in which the noise of the percussion takes on a sinister meaning. This contrasted music of peace and war proceeds in uneasy counterpoint throughout the rest of the second movement. In the 'Love Duet' that follows, the couple try to get a handle on what this 'love' thing might mean, how long it might last, whether it is lofty or banal, and whether any of this really matters. 'Scary, the way it flows, as if it knows the mystery; scary, the way it grows and grows, incessantly, evenly, unevenly...' The song they are singing is a metaphor for their relationship itself. Love turns out to be hard to define and impossible to conceptualise, neither soaring to great heights nor plunging into the depths, as the couple drift along within what might be termed an area of tolerable conflict.

The orchestration of Chichester Psalms calls for six brass (three trumpets and three trombones), two harps, a large percussion section, and strings. The original conception or “version”—in which form the work was given its premiere at Chichester Cathedral at the end of July 1965—is for a chorus exclusively of men and boys, with the boys’ voices on the soprano and alto lines. (This follows the German, or continental European choral tradition, rather than the established English Church format that calls typically for boys only on the soprano line with adult countertenors on the alto part.) Two weeks earlier, however, Bernstein conducted the actual world premiere at New York’s Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall), with the New York Philharmonic and the Camerata Singers—a mixed choir with women’s voices substituting for boys on the soprano and alto parts. Performances since then have been given in both formats. But Bernstein stipulated in a note to the published score that the long alto solo in the second movement, which is unsuited to the timbre of the female—and certainly an adult female—voice, must always be sung either by a boy (which is generally preferable) or a countertenor. The orchestra were looking for a piece to help them celebrate their centennial, and Bernstein accepted. The composer had a long-term sentimental connection to the city, having grown up and attended university there, made his directorial debut at the Tanglewood Music Center, and conducted more then 130 concerts with the orchestra itself. In 1977, Bernstein described Chichester Psalms: “the most accessible, B-flat major-ish tonal piece I’ve ever written.” Three Movements, Six Psalms: Words of Peace and Reconciliation By combining the Hebrew with Christian choral tradition, Bernstein was implicitly issuing a plea for peace in Israel during a turbulent time in the young country’s history.with a tranquil melody, sung by the boy treble (or countertenor), and repeated by the soprano voices in the chorus. This is abruptly interrupted by the orchestra and the low, rumbling sounds (again word painting) of the men's voices singing Psalm 2 (also notably featured in Handel's Messiah). This is gradually overpowered by the soprano voices (with the direction—at measure 102 in the vocal score only—"blissfully unaware of threat") with David serenely reaffirming the second portion of Psalm 23. However, the last measures of the movement contain notes which recall the interrupting section, symbolizing mankind's unending struggle with conflict and faith.

Bernstein made his own selection from the psalms, and decided to retain the original Hebrew for an ecumenical message, focused on the "brotherhood of Man". [5] Introduction [ edit ] Although it may seem now that Bernstein’s celebrity and international visibility in the twin worlds of theatrical and concert music made him a natural candidate for so important a commission, this invitation may also be viewed as adventurous, if not courageous, for its time. In retrospect, however—on another plane—it might not have been so far-fetched (even if unprecedented) for the Dean to commission a transparently and avowedly Jewish composer—whose most recent work had been based not only on Judaic liturgy in its original language but on a personalized Jewish theological interpretation with Hassidic foundations—to write for an Anglican cathedral setting. Nor should the very positive response there to its Judaic parameters have been completely unexpected.The final movement—which is also the longest—begins with a passionate and elegiac introduction for the strings. This leads into a warm, assuaging setting of Psalm 131, to a long and intensely memorable melody in 10/4 time, which is first cousin to the love-songs of Bernstein’s stage shows. Finally the chorus, unaccompanied, intones a verse from Psalm 133 as a vision of peace before the closing Amen. In the score, Bernstein notes that the soprano and alto parts were written "with boys' voices in mind," and that it is "possible but not preferable" to use women's voices instead. However, he states that the male alto solo "must not be sung by a woman," but either by a boy or a countertenor. [6] This was to reinforce the liturgical meaning of the passage sung, perhaps to suggest that Psalm 23, a "Psalm of David" from the Hebrew Bible, was to be heard as if sung by the boy David himself. [7] Webster, Peter (2017). Church and patronage in 20th century Britain: Walter Hussey and the arts. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.189–198. ISBN 978-1-13-736909-3. OCLC 1012344270. Commissioned by the Very Rev. Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral, Sussex, for its 1965 Festival, and dedicated, with gratitude, to Cyril Solomon” Have a look at the text here, as handwritten by Bernstein, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Music Division: Chichester Psalms, p1. (Credit: Library of Congress, Music Division) Chichester Psalms, p2. (Credit: Library of Congress, Music Division) Chichester Psalms, p3. (Credit: Library of Congress, Music Division) Chichester Psalms, p4 (Credit: Library of Congress, Music Division)