Lamentations (2022)

Perusal Score

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General Information

Movements:
I. The Lord is in the Right
II. Like an enemy
III. He has walled me in
IV. Is this the city?
V. Turn back to the Lord

Text: Drawn from the Book of Lamentations, in English with selected phrases in Hebrew

Commissioner: The Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale
Written: December 2021 – February 2022
Duration: ca. 20’
Instrumentation: at least 8 singers (SSAATTB)

Performance History

February 26, 2022: the Yale Cantata Project at Dwight Hall Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, CT (World Premiere)

Program Note

Text

(all text is drawn from the Book of Lamentations unless otherwise noted)

I. The Lord is in the Right

The Lord is in the Right,
For I have disobeyed Him. (1:18)

For these things do I weep,
My eyes flow with tears: (1:16)

Jerusalem has become a thing unclean.
The Lord is in the Right,
For I have disobeyed him. (1:17-18)
צדיק הוא יהוה

II. Like an enemy

He bent His bow like an enemy,
Poised His right hand like a foe;
He slew all who delighted His eye.
He poured out His wrath like fire. (2:4)

My eyes are spent with tears,
My heart is in sorrow,
My being melts away. (2:11)

III. He has walled me in

He has walled me in and I cannot break out;
He has weighed me down with chains. (3:7)

He has walled in my ways with hewn blocks,
He has made my paths a maze. (3:9)

And when I cry and plead, he shuts out my prayer. (3:8)

For Her ruin is vast as the sea. (2:13)
כי גדול כים שברך

IV. Is this the city?

Is this the city that was called
Perfect in Beauty,
Joy of All the Earth? (2:15)

The old men are gone from the gate,
The young men from their music.
Gone is the joy of our hearts;
Our dancing is turned into mourning (5:14-15)

V. Turn back to the Lord

Let us search and examine our ways,
And turn back to the Lord;
Let us lift up our hearts with our hands
To God in heaven:
We have transgressed and rebelled,
And You have not forgiven (3:40-42).

But this do I call to mind,
Therefore I have hope:
The kindness of the Lord has not ended,
His mercies are not spent.
They are renewed every morning —
Ample is Your grace! (3:21-23)
רבה אמונתך

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God. (Renaissance phrase)

This setting of text from the biblical Book of Lamentations was composed as a modern reflection on older music drawing from the same text. While the historical reading of the Book of Lamentations is that it laments the destruction of Jerusalem when the Babylonians invaded Israel and raized the First Temple in 586 BCE, I specifically selected texts from Lamentations to reflect on the modern political situation in Israel: one fraught with violence. What can Lamentations, as a poetic, literary, spiritual and sacred work, offer to us today? Its imagery of imprisonment, fire, sadness, and mourning in Jerusalem seem sadly all too relevant more than two and a half thousand years later. In this, and especially in the final movement, I hope this work serves as a reflection on and a prayer for peace in Israel.

עושה שלום במרומיו
הוא יעשה שלום עלינו
ואל כול ישראל
ואמרו: אמן

Performance Notes

This setting of Lamentations was written with the concept that each movement can also be sung intersecting performances of settings of lamentations by Thomas Tallis (Lamentations of Jeremiah, I and II), Giovanni da Palestrina (Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, Liber III, Lectio II), and Orlando de Lassus (Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae a 5, Prima Diei, Lectio III), in that order. This piece can be used to make effective key transitions between each Renaissance setting. Alternatively, movements may be excerpted and performed as stand-alone pieces.

Full recording available upon request. Please use the contact form linked in the menu above, or email me at ben.beckman@yale.edu.