Grant Park Music Festival 2018: Book 2

gpmf.org

O sacrum convivium,

O sacred feast,

in quo Christus sumitur:

in which Christ is received:

recoliter memoria passionis ejus,

the memory of his Passion is renewed,

mens impletur gratia

the soul is filled with grace,

et futurae gloriae

and a pledge of future glory

nobis pignus datur, alleluia.

is given to us, alleluia.

Leonard Bernstein

(1918–1990)

CHICHESTER PSALMS

(1965)

Scored for:

solo boy soprano, three trumpets, three

trombones, timpani, percussion, two harps, strings

and chorus.

Performance time:

16 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance:

July 6, 1992;

Geoffrey Simon, conductor

The

Chichester Psalms

was commissioned by the Very Rev. Walter Hussey,

Dean of Chichester Cathedral, for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival,

in which the musicians of Chichester have participated with those of the

neighboring cathedrals of Salisbury and Winchester since 1959. The mood

of the

Chichester Psalms

is humble and serene, unlike the powerful but

despairing nature of Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony of 1963, composed

shortly before this work. Both use traditional texts sung in Hebrew, but the

message of the

Psalms

is one of man’s closeness to God rather than the one

of frustration and anger and shaken faith engendered by God’s inexplicable

acts as portrayed by the “Kaddish.” It is indicative that the composer chose

the 23rd Psalm (“The Lord Is My Shepherd”) for the second movement, the

heart of the

Chichester Psalms

The first movement opens with a broad chorale (“Awake, psaltery and

harp!”) that is transformed, in quick tempo, to open and close the dance-like

main body of this movement; it reappears at the beginning and end of the

finale. The touching simplicity that begins the second movement recalls the

pastoral song of David, the young shepherd. Suddenly, threatening music

interrupts the text, “Why do the nations rage?” The quiet song reappears in

the high voices. The finale begins with an instrumental prelude based on the

stern chorale that opened the work. The chorus intones a gently swaying

theme on the text, “Lord, Lord, My heart is not haughty.”

Chichester Psalms

concludes with yet another adaptation of the recurring chorale.

Psalm 108, verse 2:

Urah, hanevel, v’chinor!

Awake, psaltery and harp!

A–irah shahar!

I will rouse the dawn!

Psalm 100, entire:

Hariu l’Adonai kol haarets.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord

all ye lands.