Memories of Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms on 60th anniversary

Noel was a 24-year-old lay vicar with Chichester Cathedral Choir at the time of the piece’s premiere in the cathedral in 1965.

This year's anniversary will be marked with a concert entitled Together in Unity on Saturday, May 17. Part of Chichester950, the year-long celebrations marking the Cathedral’s 950th year, the concert will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Chichester Psalms and also unveil a major new musical commission to mark the milestone year, a new work by British composer Joanna Marsh inspired by Psalm 90 (‘Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity’).

The concert will stir strong memories for Noel: “I just can't believe that it was 60 years ago. It is staggering. Where has the time gone? We are now celebrating 950 years for Chichester Cathedral and I remember the 900th anniversary 50 years ago which just seems like yesterday!

“In 1965 I was 24 and I was one of the lay vicars. It was the Southern Cathedrals Festival and all three Southern Cathedrals took part in the concert that contained the Chichester Psalms (Chichester Cathedral choir plus the cathedral choirs of Winchester and Salisbury). So it was quite a big choir. Chichester took the lead. We had six lay vicars and 12 choristers that were batting for Chichester. I think there are about four choristers that are still around and actively connected with the cathedral still, and then there's me who they dust off from the back row!

“My recollection is that Dean Walter Hussey and John Birch, the organist, were cooking up something about a year before. They knew that the festival would be in Chichester and they thought ‘Let's have a new commission.’ For a while they struggled who to invite but somehow Walter Hussey got his teeth into Leonard Bernstein and the next thing we knew Lenny had agreed to it. Walter was absolutely brilliant at getting people to do things!

“Leonard Bernstein wrote it in April and May of 1965 and we performed it at the end of July. The parts came through from America a few at a time and it was quite late on that we realised that we were going to have to sing this in Hebrew. That was the killer blow! It's absolutely fantastic music and it has stood the test of time. It is by far and away the most successful Southern Cathedrals Festival commission that there has ever been, and choirs all around the world still love singing it. But it emerged slowly for us and when we got the Hebrew I can remember rushing down to the Theological College saying ‘Help, help, help! Can you tell us how to pronounce this?’ Then we got a phonetic version of the text but it was quite difficult. It's quite quick. It's almost like a patter song in some ways.

“Leonard Bernstein was there for the performance. There was some discussion whether he should conduct it but he didn't want to because he would not have had enough rehearsal time. John Birch did it but Bernstein was in the audience. He was beautifully dressed. He was already a superstar. He was world famous. He had this black leather coat on, and I don't think we had seen a black leather coat in Chichester before! He was such a charismatic chap. He came into the song school after the performance and congratulated the choir.”

Looking back Noel believes there was a sense of history at the time: “It was written by Leonard Bernstein and he was sitting there in the audience. We had one day’s rehearsal with the orchestra on the day and I can remember it was a bit tense but tense in the right way. It's quite a difficult piece. There are some challenging parts, some low voices and some high voices and some difficult rhythms. But the main thing on the day was that it was just a fantastic piece of music.”