Love endureth

Programme Note

This setting of Psalm 136(135) was commissioned as part of a psalm series by Soli Deo Gloria, devoted to promoting music in the Biblical tradition, for Westminster Cathedral Choir. The original brief referred to the “old Hebrew psalms” which planted the idea in my mind to bring a strong Jewish flavour to both the music and the words. I have used two fragments of Spanish Sephardic chants (from both this psalm and the previous one) and, half way throughout the piece, substituted the English response for its Hebrew equivalent “Ki L’olam chasdo” – “For forever His mercy.”