Leonard Bernstein had intended to spend his 1965 sabbatical finishing a theatrical score based on Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of our Teeth, but that project had permanently stalled. He described himself in a letter to a friend as “a composer without a project.”

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But there was an earlier letter from the Very Rev. Walter Hussey, Dean of the Cathedral of Chichester, inquiring whether Bernstein might write a psalm setting that the combined choirs of Chichester, Winchester, and Salisbury might perform at their annual festival. (Chichester would host the festival in 1965.) Hussey was a well-known arts advocate working to close the gap between the church and the arts. He had commissioned Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb for the 50th anniversary of St. Matthew’s in Northampton when he was vicar there, as well as work from Marc Chagall, W.H. Auden, Henry Moore, Gerald Finzi and others.

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Perhaps a setting of Psalm 2 (“Why do the nations rage?”), Hussey suggested. Bernstein proposed a suite of psalms, to which Hussey happily agreed, and the work was underway.

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Chichester Psalms would be Bernstein’s second major work with vocal parts in Hebrew. His Symphony No. 3 (“Kaddish,” 1963), written in memory of President John F. Kennedy, reflected how deeply the assassination had affected him, an expression of anguish and dispair. Chichester Psalms would be different: positive, affirming, hopeful, and in a Bernstein idiom. (Hussey had mentioned in passing that a flavor of West Side Story would be welcome. The men’s verse from Psalm 2 in the second movement of Chichester Psalms turned out to be music that Bernstein had written for, but not included, in West Side Story. Bernstein incorporated sketches from the Skin of Our Teeth project in the setting of Psalm 23.)

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The work touches six psalms. Each of the three movements presents one psalm in its entirety, with verses from one other psalm for contrast or to insert an idea. The opening movement, for example, presents the entire Psalm 100 — “Make a joyful noise to the Lord” — but not before a loud, dissonant, rousing verse from Psalm 108 commands the audience’s attention and introduces the entire work: “Urah, hanevel, v’chinor! A-irah shahar!” (“Awake, psaltery and harp! I will rouse the dawn!”)

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The second movement, the most theatrical, conjures the shepherd boy David, whose harp and music provided the only effective therapy for King Saul’s periodic fits of rage. The harp has a primary role in the movement, and Bernstein adds a composer’s note that the solo passages must be sung by a boy or a counter-tenor. The pure treble voice (Bernstein specifies “senza sentimentalita” — without sentimentality) intones the first four verses of Psalm 23, joined by the women’s voices at “Gam ki eilech b’gei tsalmavet” (“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”)

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A loud interruption by the men — “Lamah?” (“Why?”) — demands to know, in the words of Psalm 2, why the nations rage and conspire against the Lord’s anointed, a question also asked and not answered in Handel’s Messiah. The men continue with their question but begin to fade as Psalm 23 resumes, “Ta’aroch l’fanai shulchan” (“Thou preparest a table before me.”) Bernstein asks the women to be “blissfully unaware of threat” as they and the treble present the final verses of the psalm, and he has the women conclude the movement by restating the opening phrase “Adonai ro-i, lo ehsar” (“The Lord is my shepherd.”)

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The third movement sets Psalm 131 in its entirety, with themes not of resignation but of calm and confident peace. “Surely I have calmed and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother. My soul is even as a weaned child.” The work, which began with an attention-grabbing insertion from Psalm 108, now ends with a familiar and reassuring mantra from Psalm 133: “Hineh mah tov umah nayim, shevet ahim gam yahad” (“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.”) The Hebrew yahad — “together” or “as one” — completes the psalm verse, and the chorus moves together to a long, quiet, unison Amen.

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Bernstein wrote Chichester Psalms for full orchestra and substantial choral forces. With Rev. Hussey’s agreement, he conducted the world premiere in New York’s Philharmonic Hall on July 15, 1965, about two weeks before the work was presented at the Chichester Festival. Bernstein himself created the version being performed by the Providence Singers this weekend, for chorus, solo voice, organ, harp, and percussion.

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