Voices of Connection: 05/24 Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms, 3rd Movement

FROM GUEST CURATOR JAMES BASSI

Hello once more,

Today is the final installment of my five-part listening series. Before I present my introductory notes, I want to thank Dennis Keene, Wesley Chinn, and Liz Norman for allowing me to share these musical memories with you all. Now, onto the finale!

I mentioned last time that, in my sophomore year of high school, with encouragement from my choral director, Rachel Batchelder, I auditioned for the Massachusetts District Chorus, for a concert drawing together young musicians from Massachusetts’ Northeast District. I was accepted, and to this day it still thrills me to recall that the featured work on this concert was one of the great choral masterpieces of the 20th century: Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.” We performed the third movement, with two pianos. I was just starting to seriously write music at the time, and the sounds I was hearing changed me on a molecular level. I had never heard anything like this. I started to seek out other works by Stravinsky. “Mrs. B” was also teaching a music appreciation class around this time, and in that class I got exposed to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” as well as the music of Ives, Honegger, Copland, Cowell…the list goes on. I bought an LP of the ‘Rite’, and I experienced a kind of reverse nerd version of the old story: instead of a parent asking their kid to turn down the loud rock music, it was my older brother begging me to ’shut off the cacophony’ — namely, Zubin Mehta's recording of “The Rite of Spring,' which I had cranked up full blast from the back room of our house.

Here is the third movement of Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” in a stunning recording with Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. This music remains a touchstone for me in my ongoing work as a composer and performer. I am honored to share it with you now.

— James Bassi

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