Thomas Beveridge Yizkor Requiem Yizkor Requiem: A Quest for Spiritual Roots seeks to combine the memorial services of the Jewish and Catholic...
Thomas Beveridge
Yizkor Requiem
Yizkor Requiem: A Quest for Spiritual Roots seeks to
combine the memorial services of the Jewish and Catholic religions. The title
reflects the first words of the Yizkor Service and the Requiem Mass: The Hebrew
word "yizkor" means "may He remember," the whole initial
phrase being "Yizkor Elohim et nishmat" ("May God remember the
soul of..."); the Latin word "requiem" means "rest,"
from the initial phrase "Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine"
("Rest eternal grant them, Lord").
The Yizkor Service is not a funeral ritual, but a memorial
service celebrated on a handful of occasions during the year in the synagogue,
notably in the afternoon on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. At that time all
who have ever suffered the loss of loved ones, particularly of parents,
participate in these prayers and recitations. The Requiem Mass is intended for funeral
or memorial services, but it is certainly used for memorials of a more general
nature, especially in the concert settings of the great masters. The
inspiration to write Yizkor Requiem came to me when my father, Lowell Beveridge,
passed away in 1991 - the "requiem aeternam" theme actually came to
me the very day of his death. A year and a half later, my mother, Ida, died, and
the work is dedicated to the memory of both my parents.
In 1994, I conducted the premiere performance of Yizkor
Requiem, by the New Dominion Chorale, of which I am the Artistic Director
There have been several performances since then in Washington, Chicago and New
York, the most important of which was at the Concert Hall of the John F Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, by The Choral Arts Society of Washington under
the direction of Norman Scribner, in Apri11996. This compact disc is a
recording of that live performance at the Kennedy Center.
My decision to interweave themes from the Jewish and
Christian faiths was inspired by Lowell Beveridge's own "quest for
spiritual roots," The first half of his career was spent in New York,
where he was on the Columbia University faculty as organist and choirmaster at
St Paul's Chapel, and a professor at the School of Sacred Music at Union
Theological Seminary. He then studied for the Episcopal priesthood and spent 25
years as Professor of Speech and Music at Virginia Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.
Upon retiring he spent two years in Israel at the ecumenical institute Tantur,
with representatives of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
His lifelong project was to search out and assemble writings
on the subject of "Music and the Soul," which he called his "pythagoras
Project." This brought him into contact with many great thinkers such as
the Swiss theologian-musician Karl Barth, and Eric Werner, Professor at Hebrew
Union College in New York, whose masterful study of the origins of Christian
liturgy and music in the synagogue, "The Sacred Bridge," profoundly
affected him.
Scholars have long known about the influence of the
synagogue on the early Church. I find it of particular interest that the prayer
Jesus taught to his disciples, the "Lord's Prayer," has much in
common with the "Kaddish" prayer. This is reflected in the final movement
of Yizkor Requiem when the two prayers are sung simultaneously. In
summary, Yizkor Requiem is intended to illustrate musically the common
themes of the two rituals, to stand, as it were, on the Sacred Bridge between
them, and to show that in many ways they express the same hopes and fears and
ideas.
The work is scored for mixed voices (often singing in
unison or in two parts); three soloists. Cantor(tenor), soprano and alto; and
chamber orchestra: three violin, three viola, three cello parts and bass viol,
two flutes, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, horn and two trumpets, timpani and
percussion, The cantor dominates the work, singing in Hebrew or Aramaic, and in
a style which allows for occasional ornamentation and improvisation.
A word needs to be said about the texts that have not been
used, namely the places in the Requiem Mass that deal with the Day of Judgment
and the agonies awaiting the damned - the entire "Dies Irae" and
parts of the "Domine Jesu Christe" or "Offertorium." There
has been no attempt to demonstrate the similarities in the music of the
synagogue and the early church, but there are certain recurring musical symbols
and motifs:
The Octave: I call it the "Yizkor
Motif," invoking the interrelationship between God (the higher note) and
humankind (the lower note), Although God is the
Highest, we do partake in the divinity at a lower level of
awareness. The opening movement begins with a trumpet fanfare in octaves; many
of the movements are preceded by instrumental playing of the separate notes of
the octave; the soprano and alto soloists often sing in octaves; and toward the
end of the work all the forces are in octaves (Justorum Animae, the Lord's
Prayer).
The Fifth: Symbolizing Perfection and
Glory, the fifth appears at the very opening with the Cantor singing the shofar-like
phrase "Yitgadal" (Magnified), And in the great climax of the
Sanctification, the brass instruments are heard above the entire chorus and orchestra
playing the great shofar-motif of the fifth.
The Third: Symbolizing Love The soprano and
alto soloists sing mostly in thirds, especially when invoking the name of
Jesus.
The basic structure of Yizkor Requiem rests on
three pillars' the "Reader's Kaddish" at the beginning, the "Sanctification"
or Kedusha in the middle, and the "Mourner's Kaddish/Lord's Prayer"
at the end. The words Kaddish and Kedusha are both derived from the Hebrew root
KDSH, Holy or Sanctified. Note that the Lord's Prayer is translated "Our father
in heaven, sanctified be your Name."
The incidental structure of the work is triggered by
linguistic parallels between the two traditions. Among the words which
influenced me the most are the following: