Interpolations for Handel’s Messiah, for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra (2021)

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Haam Haholchim Bachoshech (The People Walking in Darkness), for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra (2021) | 5′

Kumi ori (Arise, shine), for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra (2021) | 3′

Adonai Ro’i Lo Echsar (Psalm 23) for SATB chorus and piano (1999) | 3′

All three pieces are intended for use in the Messiah performance, all have the same orchestration (Strings, 2 oboes, 2 trumpets), and all available in full score and piano reduction.

Each can be performed that way, or as choral pieces separate from a performance of Messiah.

Composer’s note:

Paul Dankers, musical director of the Aspen Choral Society, contacted me with a fascinating project: to refresh their performances of Handel’s amazing and beloved Messiah by commissioning new pieces to replace certain movements of the original piece, and to add more choral movements to the ACS’s performance. When Paul called me and offered the commission, I was intrigued, honored, and a little bit daunted in taking on this task. But then I began studying Handel’s oratorio, and grew fascinated with the idea of writing new pieces that would fit smoothly into the flow of the Messiah, and yet be true to my own musical voice. And since I am Jewish and write many compositions in Hebrew, I decided to compose pieces that take the English text of the Messiah and replace it with the original Hebrew from the Book of Isaiah.

Haam Haholchim Bachoshech (“The people walking in darkness”) is composed to replace the bass solo aria “The people that walked in darkness” of the Handel. Like Handel’s aria, it is filled with chromatic wanderings in darkness—but it reaches for a more exultant light than the original aria, and then leads directly into Handel’s jubilant “For unto us a child is born.”

The second new piece, Kumi Ori, immediately follows “For unto us”, and my aim in this movement was to respond directly to the motifs and energy of that jubilant chorus: beginning with its 16th-note figures in a new, more distant key, and shifting between different tonalities and rhythmic meters. When the chorus enters, it is singing a long lyrical line against the continuing energy of the accompaniment, on the text “Kumi Ori (Arise, Shine),” from Isaiah Chapter 60—a text that was also part of the earlier movement “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.”

The third piece, Adonai Ro’i, is a new orchestration of my setting of Psalm 23, and speaks about God as a Shepherd, similarly to the piece that it replaces in the Handel, “He shall feed his flock.”

In all these pieces, I am using the same orchestration as in the Handel, have aimed to create a musical world that feels very connected to Messiah, and yet clearly to come from the 21st and not the 18th century. It was a wonderful challenge to compose these new pieces! The Aspen Choral Society, Paul Dankers, conductor, gave the premiere of the three movements as part of their December 2021 performances of Handel’s Messiah and have since performed them as part of their Messiah performances each year.