Leonard Bernstein was a towering figure on the American, and later international music scene as a composer, conductor and music educator. Composing music for the stage, film and concert hall in numerous genres, it is perhaps for his musical West Side Story that he is most widely remembered as a composer. As a conductor, his performances and recordings of both the main classical repertoire and modern American music have won critical acclaim.
The Chichester Psalms date from 1965. Although commissioned by the Dean of Chichester Cathedral for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival, it's first performance took place in New York on July 15th 1965 around the time this recording was made with the same forces. It's performance at Chichester was a couple of weeks later.
The work uses settings of text from the Psalms, and is scored for orchestra (or organ) with a treble soloist. In requesting the commission, the Dean hoped that " . . . Bernstein would feel unrestrained for composing in a more popular vein despite the sacred nature of the assignment. Hussey wrote, 'Many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of West Side Story about the music.' "
Chichester Psalms has been described as one of Bernstein's masterpieces by the Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. "If there would be one piece to make/have someone listen and say here is what Bernstein can do as a composer, I believe I would choose the Chichester Psalms."
On a personal note, this piece takes me back many years (1971 to be precise) to when I joined the Proteus Choir - a youth choir attached to the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by the music director Vernon Handley. Every season the choir joined with the orchestra in one of their concerts, and when I joined they were rehearsing Chichester Psalms. To say this came as a shock to a young (untrained) singer would be an understatement. Getting round the Hebrew pronunciation was almost harder than hitting the notes. But the performance was exhilarating, as well as having a ringside seat behind the orchestra for the other works on the programme - music by Prokofiev, Dohnanyi, Strauss, Copland and Elgar. This record is the one I bought to help me learn the music!
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