From the time I was a child, I was transfixed by musician, composer, and conductor, Leonard Bernstein. I use to watch his “Young People” talks on television about music. As I grew as a musician, and formally studied music in college, and played his music (the Prologue to West Side Story is extremely challenging), I only grew in my admiration of his skills as a composer.
Chichester Psalms, was commissioned by Chichester Cathedral in West Sussex for a big musical festival in 1965. Bernstein set parts of Psalm 108, 100, Psalm 23, Psalm 2, Psalm 133, and Psalm 131 in their original Hebrew to music. He scored the composition for treble voice (boy’s voice), SATB choir, and small orchestra.
I remember going to the local Music Land (an old record store chain) and buying an album of Bernstein’s music conducted by Bernstein. He was still the musical director of the New York Philharmonic. The recording had two musical works, his Third Symphony (Kaddish), composed in memory of President John F Kennedy, and his Chichester Psalms. There have been certain albums I wore out listening. This is one of those albums. It has been probably about 10 years since I listened to it last. I listened to it again, last night and was as captivated by it as I was back in 1970 when I first bought the album. It was this repeated listening that was the catalyst for this poem.
UPON A RELISTENING TO THE CHICHESTER PSALMS
Lenny.
Can I call you Lenny?
One of America’s
most celebrated musicians,
composers, conductors,
at home in musical theater,
ballet, and concert hall,
emerging into the public eye
with Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Bruce,
blazing new creative trails
into the American consciousness,
upsetting many an applecart,
and barbequing many sacred cows.
Psalms, why the psalms?
In Hebrew, no less?
Musical commissions, the
composer’s payday, always
a good motivation, but
the Psalms really? Well
I know them, praying them
morning, evening, and night,
studying them in seminary.
Psalms, a musical prayer
arising from the conflicted,
shredded souls of their
authors, singing from
the ashes of their self-defeat
and despair. A calling upon
a power beyond their control
for healing, for companionship,
for readmittance into a
relationship of trust and love.
Imploring for triumph over
enemies, thanksgiving for
favors granted, and
humble acknowledgement
of their own smallness and
powerlessness in a world
born of cruelty and greed.
Mighty composers, too
numerous to mention
have set these ancient
words to music. Monks
to Mozart, Bach to Britten,
have made their attempts,
some I have chanted,
others I have sung, or
directed from the podium.
Why is it, Lenny that you,
only you, have succeeded
in painting notes, rhythms,
melody, orchestrations,
and voices to so move
my soul, to so stir my
heart so as to hear
God’s voice in their midst,
and dare to reach out
to touch God’s face?
Does this music arise
from your own mortal
soul, as broken and conflicted
as mine, keenly aware, that
in spite of awards, accolades,
and fame heaped upon you,
your significance is as great
as a flower, whose petals,
dressed momentarily in splendor,
will lose their allure, fade,
droop and drop to the ground dead?
Did Ruah, Sophia, Spiritus, or
some other manifestation of Spirit,
inspire and guide your hand,
musically painting each word,
each sound, with the tone
color of the Divine? Or,
am I merely projecting my
own musical prejudice
upon your musical score?
They matter not, these questions
posed to a soul long gone.
Were I to stand at the foot
of your grave and whisper
them to the inanimate matter
beneath its surface, I would
still hear only silence. The
Psalmists are correct, we all
flower and fade and go back,
reuniting with the earth
of our origin.
But Lenny, these Psalms,
these Chichester Psalms are
like a beautiful flower,
pressed between the pages
of a book. They wait only
for the book to be opened,
to be watered with musicians,
and be heard, reborn,
to their formal beauty.
(c) 2019. The Book Of Ruth. Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved
