About
Adonai s’fatai tiftach (Holy One, open my lips) was commissioned by Bet Am Shalom, White Plains, NY, in honor of the retirement of my dear friends and colleagues Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller and Rabbi Les Bronstein. I based the piece on a melody I wrote for this text as part of the service, a meditative tune leading into the Amidah—the central prayer of each Jewish service.
The melody first appears unnacompanied in solo voices, then in the chorus with a gentle accompaniment in the piano. The middle section sets the same text in English, using the names “Holy One” and Breath of Life” as the translation of “Adonai”. Where the main melody is primarily set in unison, this middle section has rich and modulating harmonies in the chorus. The return of the main melody, brings back the unison melody in the tenor and bass against responses in English in the soprano and alto.
The piece was written to be performed at its premiere by a solo quartet of cantors that has loved to sing together in concerts presenting our own and other’s music: Benjie Ellen Schiller, Natasha Hirschhorn, Isaac Sonett-Assor, and myself.
—Gerald Cohen
Score
Text
Psalm 51:17
Adonai s’fatai tiftach,
Adonai s’fatai tiftach,
ufi yagid t’hilatecha.
Holy One, open my lips,
Breath of Life, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.