Thursday, December 10, 2009

Chicester* (for Chichester)

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) composed his lovely work Chichester Psalms in 1965. It was commissioned for a festival at Chichester Cathedral that same year and features Hebrew psalm texts for countertenor and chorus set to an orchestral accompaniment. The third movement, taken from Psalm 131, begins as follows (in translation):

Lord, Lord,
My heart is not haughty,

Nor mine eyes lofty,
Neither do I exercise myself
In great matters or in things
Too wonderful for me.


As someone who makes a fair number of typos, I find this a suitable mind set to adopt when approaching the work of finding and correcting them! Chicester* is a high-probability error on the Ballard list, but presently there are only 8 entries for it in OhioLink, mostly in transcribed fields.

(The nave of Chichester Cathedral, Sussex, England, from Wikimedia Commons)

Deb Kulczak

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