Chapter 11 - The Crisis of Faith

Summary

Leonard Bernstein stated in 1977, ‘The work I have been writing all my life is about … the crisis of our century, a crisis of faith’. In the decade between 1961 and 1971, he completed just three works, all choral-orchestral: ‘Kaddish’ (Symphony No. 3), Chichester Psalms, and Mass. This chapter views these works through the lens of Bernstein’s intense concern with a crisis of faith, at once societal and personal, philosophical and musical. In its reading of the scores, it seeks a deeper understanding of the music (including for practical performance), and of Bernstein’s propositions in theological as well as musical terms – concluding that his process is not merely one of presenting crises, but also one working to revise and reinvigorate larger faith and musical structures, as we see most spectacularly in Mass’s ritual of crisis and reaffirmation.