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PROGRAM NOTES
people feel things that he could take
something that was already popular
and get everybody around the world
to hear it in a new way. From the
1960s until the 1980s, there was a wall
in the city of Berlin in Germany, and
once everyone agreed that they didn’t
need a wall, Bernstein went there
to play a special concert with musi-
cians from both sides of the wall. He
had the orchestra and chorus he put
together play Ludwig van Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony, in which the chorus
sings an “Ode to Joy” in the last part,
but he had them change the words to
an “Ode to
Freedom
.” It gave a whole
new meaning to the famous music.
(You might have even heard or played
a version of the tune to the “Ode to
Joy” in school.)
Also during the 1960s, Bernstein
was the director of the New York
Philharmonic (another famous
orchestra like the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra), but one year he decided
he needed to take a break from all
the work that goes into running an
orchestra so he could get back to
writing music. Can you imagine being
so busy doing something you love
to do that it left no time to do some-
thing else you love just as much?
That’s a tough choice to make! But
writing music was important to him,
so he made time for it. He still was
only able to write a couple pieces,
but one of them was just as joyous
as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He
called it
Chichester Psalms
because
it was written for a festival at the
Chichester Cathedral in England,
using life-celebrating text from
the Book of Psalms that’s in both
his Jewish faith and the cathedral’s
Christian faith.