Gerald Cohen, Natasha Hirschhorn, Benjie-Ellen Schiller, Isaac Sonett-Assor, with Alexandra Joan, piano
About
This gentle and luminous piece was inspired by the birth of my child and sets texts that are traditionally said by parents in blessing their children on the Sabbath. The piece is appropriate for any setting of blessing, including interfaith services. It can be sung by an SA or TB choir, or by two soloists in all voice types.
The text of Y’varech’cha really consists of two parts: the first three lines, from the book of Numbers, is known as the Priestly Blessing, and is perhaps the earliest extant blessing we have in Jewish texts. It is a part of all Jewish and Christian liturgies. The last two lines are additional blessings traditionally said by parents to their children at the beginning of the Sabbath.
The core melody of Y’varech’cha, with the mood of a lullaby, was originally written in 1995 on the joyous occasion of the birth of our child, Cass. I first composed it in a version for two-part chorus (or solo duet) and piano, and have since made many different arrangements, with accompaniments available for an obbligato instrument with piano, for string quartet and orchestra, as well as various purely instrumental arrangements. I recently wrote a new version, also available, for SATB chorus and piano.
May the Lord bless you and guard you, May the Lord cause the light of His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you, May the Lord lift up His face to you, and grant you peace.
May God give you the blessings of Ephraim and Menasheh, May God give you the blessings of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.
Sim Shalom was commissioned by the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, located on Long Island, NY. This summer program has been an inspiring place for young musicians and other artists since 1968. Sim Shalom was given its premiere in August 2001 by the Usdan Festival Chorus, Elliot Bean, conductor.
The text Sim Shalom (Grant Peace) is recited every morning as the final section of the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. Sim Shalom is felt as the culmination of the entire Amidah, which thus concludes with a prayer for peace and a sense of gratitude for our many blessings in life.
Sim shalom tova uvracha, chein vachesed v’rachamim, aleinu v’al kol Yisrael amecha, al kol Yisrael amecha. [v’al kol yoshvei olamecha] Barcheinu avinu kulanu k’echad b’or panecha, Ki v’or panecha natata lanu Adonai Eloheinu, torat chayim v’ahavat chesed, uts’daka uv’racha, v’rachamim v’chayim v’shalom. V’tov b’einecha l’vareich et am’cha Yisrael, b’chol eit uv’chol shaa bishlomecha. Sim shalom tova uvracha, chein vachesed v’rachamim, sim shalom.
Grant peace, goodness and blessing, grace and mercy and compassion, for us and for all Israel, your people. [and for all the inhabitants of Your world.] Bless us, our Creator, one and all, with the light of Your presence. For by that light You have given us, Adonai our God, life-giving Torah, and merciful love, righteousness, blessing, compassion, and life and peace. And let it be good in your eyes to bless Your people Israel, in every season and at every hour with Your peace. Grant peace, goodness and blessing, grace and mercy and compassion, grant peace.
Performances
Premiere:Usdan Festival Chorus, Elliot Bean, conductor, Long Island, NY, August 2001
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting was commissioned by St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York, NY as part of the Faith Partners Residency of the American Composers Forum, with funds provided by the Wolfensohn Family Foundation.
For this residency, in which St. Bartholomew’s Church collaborated with Temple Emanu-El and the Church of St. Ignatius-Loyola, also of New York City, I composed four pieces, one for each congregation, and one as a joint commission to be performed by each of the three congregations. St. Bartholomew’s, wanting for its individual commission a piece for both the children’s and adult choirs of the congregation, chose a beautiful excerpt of William Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality. The text highlights a principal idea of the entire poem—that in childhood we have intimations of an existence transcending our everyday physical world, and that as we grow into adults, this vision fades. The piece juxtaposes the clear unison lines of the children’s choir with the more complex harmonies of the mixed choir and organ, beginning and ending in quiet wonder.
The premiere of Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting was performed by the St. Bartholomew’s adult and children’s choir, William Trafka, conductor, in November 2002.
St. Bartholomew children’s and adult choirs, William Trafka, conductor
Text
(Text by William Wordsworth, from Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood )
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Performances
Premiere: St. Bartholomew’s Church adult and children’s choir, William Trafka, conductor, New York, NY, November 2002.
PDF version of score and parts: $6.00 a copy (minimum 6 copies). For printed version of score, contact me. Note: Final movement of this piece, The ocean of peace lies ahead of me, is published by G. Schirmer/AMP, and can be purchased as a separate octavo from them.
About
An Undaunted Heart: Songs of Elders was commissioned by the New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor. It was a commission of the Westchester Prize for New Works, and had its premieres in 2003 at the Music Conservatory of Westchester, White Plains, NY, and Shaarei Tikvah Congregation, Scarsdale, NY.
I was inspired to write this piece by my relationships with my elders—family, friends, and members of my community. The texts are from varied sources, including quotes from the Psalms on aging and honoring the old; by the American Marc Kaminsky, a humorous poem on a man’s vigorous request to his children to give him grandchildren; by the 12th- century Japanese poet Saigyo, on observing the passage of time in one’s aging body and in the natural world; by the American poet Mark Van Doren, on an old couple and their uncanny intuition of each other’s joys and pains; and by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, using the imagery of the “ocean of peace” that lies ahead of him as he encounters the “great unknown.”
The texts are meant to reflect a variety of experience in the aging process, and yet to create a strong sense of continuity for the piece as whole. The music is quite varied as well, responding to the texts such as the wild humor of the Kaminsky, the gentle humor of the Van Doren, and the ecstatic feeling of the Tagore, and was composed so as to utilize the marvelous technical and expressive resources of Harold Rosenbaum and the New York Virtuoso Singers.
***Note: Final movement of this piece, The ocean of peace lies ahead of me, is published by G. Schirmer/AMP
1. From the Bible (Psalm 37:25; Leviticus 19:32; Psalm 92:15; Psalm 71:9)
Naar hayiti v’gam zakanti. I was young and now grow old.
Mip’nei seiva takum, v’hadarta p’nei zakein. Rise before the old, and honor the face of an elder.
Od y’nuvun b’seiva d’sheinim v’raananim yihyu. They shall still flourish in old age, they shall be ever fresh and fragrant.
Al tashlicheini b’eit zikna, kichlot kochi al taazveini. Do not cast me off in old age—when my strength fails, do not forsake me.
2. Mark Kaminsky (American, b. 1943): “Dancing Bear”
My father, when his sons and daughters visit his table, bringing freshly picked husbands and wives, sits at the head like a man who’s come into his place and is drunk with his triumph. He jumps up and pulls each one of us to him into a great wet bear hug, and cries: Bring me grandchildren! Go home and get me some grandchildren! Quick! I want them to get me greatgrandchildren before I die. And my mother, trying to make him act like a grown-up, cannot, during the whole time he dances around us, get him back on the leash.
3. Saigyo (Japanese, 1118-1190): “While noticing how time”
While noticing how time Has bent my body’s silhouette Cast in the moonlight… Away off in the distance the moon Sank closer to the world’s rim.
4. Mark van Doren (American, 1894-1973): “Old Man, Old Woman”
Old man, if he cares much When old woman is achesome, gives No sign to strangers; even when She staggers, seems not to notice
But does, and old woman knows it In the odd way of animals That watch each other incessantly. Such tenderness is in these two,
Each of them sees everything Outside, inside the other: old Man, old woman suffer and then Feel good together, their hearts equal,
Their eyes veteran, missing no Least message, morning or evening, Winter or summer, during or after Pain—oh, dear, plenty of that.
5. Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali, 1861-1941), “The ocean of peace lies ahead of me”
The ocean of peace lies ahead of me. Sail the boat, O pilot You are my constant companion now. Take me in your lap. Along the journey to the infinite The pole star alone will shine. Giver of Freedom Set me free. May your forgiveness and compassion Be my eternal resources for the journey— May the mortal ties fall away, May the vast universe Hold me in embrace, And with an undaunted heart May I come to know the Great Unknown.
Arrangements
“The Ocean of Peace”, the final movement of An Undaunted Heart, is available in an instrumental arrangement, (i.e. without chorus), for: Violin, viola, cello and piano. This arrangement was a Hoff-Barthelson/Copland House commission.
Adon Olam is a setting of one of the best known Jewish liturgical poems— attributed to Solomon Ibn Gabriol—expressing God as present both in the infinity of space and time, and the nearness of our own being. When used in synagogue, the text is often sung at the very end of services, often to lively tunes that do not particularly reflect the meaning of the text. In this piece, I hoped to write a choral setting that was indeed a close reflection of the beauty and the content of the poem.
I was pleased to write this piece commissioned, for SATB chorus and organ, as part of the Faith Partners fellowship of the American Composers Forum, for the Church of St. Ignatius-Loyola, New York, NY, Kent Tritle, Music Director, who premiered it in September 2003. I wrote a new arrangement for chorus and piano, which was given its premiere in September 2024 by the New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor.
Lakol z’man/For everything a season was commissioned by the Cantabile Chamber Chorale, Rebecca Scott, conductor. The piece is written in memory of Ronald Axelrad—a beloved member of the chorus, and a great lover of life and of music of many sorts.
The text for this piece is the famous section from the book of Ecclesiastes (known in Hebrew as Kohelet). I have chosen to set the refrain in both Hebrew and English; the melody of the refrain is based upon the traditional cantillation of the text as it is chanted with the Hebrew text, as recited in services on the holiday of Sukkot. The opposing pairs of “a time to…” that make up the rest of the text are set in English, each verse leading to a fuller and more impassioned return of the refrain. The coda of the piece gives the melody of the refrain quietly to the piano, with the chorus singing words of the verses in a gentle recitation.
Gerald Cohen August 2004
Commissioned by Cantabile Chamber Chorus
Score
Listen/Watch
Text
Lakol z’man, v’et l’kol chefets tachat hashamayim, For everything a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens. a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up — Lakol z’man, v’et l’kol chefets tachat hashamayim, For everything a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens. a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Lakol z’man, v’et l’kol chefets tachat hashamayim, For everything a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens.
Performances
Premiere:Cantabile Chamber Chorus, Rebecca Scott, cond., December 2004, New Brunswick, NJ
