Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, Kaddish is a deeply emotive, alternately introspective and exuberant 40-minute work scored for orchestra, chorus, boys’ choir, soprano and speaker. Despite its title, Kaddish symphony is a dramatic rather than devotional composition. The spoken word segments at its core traverse an expansive range of emotion and perspective, from exhortation to consolation. The traditional Kaddish text is an ever-present reference point. Why this particular text? Maybe Bernstein found it resonant for the juxtaposition of its unequivocal statement of praise, concluding prayer for peace, its constant, familiar reference point for Jews (irrespective of religious or irreligious perspective) and its association with mourning, which can embody a tension between affirmation and loss, hope and pain.
Kaddish symphony articulates struggle with the failings of humanity, the presence yet seeming powerlessness of divinity to right our world, a human yearning to assume responsibility, and it provides glimmers of hope that we can do so. The narrative arc traces the growth in perspective of humankind from immature dependent, angry expectations of a God who made, but broke promises, to regret and compassion for the limitations of divinity in need of consolation and handholding. The arc comes to rest in a recognition that human responsibility, envisioned as a partnership of human and Divine, can be a source of hope. The parental God language in the text is reminiscent of the liturgy of Yamim Noraim (High Holy Days). Its alternately fervent and skeptical pleas that one can pray despite living in a disappointing world on the edge of self-extinction are timeless. Ultimately, its self-reflection about our place in the world render Kaddish symphony to be a worthy musical meditation for Yom Kippur. If our inward lives can be rocky, Kaddish symphony is not shy about dramatically exposing and exploring them.
The Kaddish symphony is also reflection of its era, the political and moral challenges of the early 1960s. Leonard Bernstein was acutely aware of the historical context: a nation coming to terms and resisting its legacy of racial injustice, the brutal violence by which opponents of civil rights resisted change and the threat of nuclear destruction due to Cold War crisis. The premiere performances (December 1963 in Tel Aviv and January 1964 in Boston) followed by mere weeks the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, to whom the work was then dedicated. At the same time, Bernstein could catch glimmers of the new flowering of creativity and freedom that simultaneously beckoned. The tumult of the 21st century is ripe for a reconsideration of the Kaddish symphony and how it speaks to our time as well.
Musically, Bernstein always looked to the past and to his present day. In his sixth year as musical director of the New York Philharmonic, he embraced familiar music of the classical repertoire while remaining alert and responsive to recent musical innovations. One found this in his choice of repertoire and in his own compositions, which could integrate soaring melodies of Tin Pan Alley, angularity and atonality of the European avant-garde, eclecticism of the modernist Igor Stravinsky and rhythms of jazz. Kaddish symphony draws upon all of this.
Bernstein was not a religiously practicing Jew, but he was well-informed about Jewish traditions and biblical narratives. On several occasions, such as in the Kaddish symphony, he set sacred Jewish texts to music. Israel’s independence coincided with Bernstein turning 30, and he remained ever devoted to the musical life and well-being of that nation. Despite his distance from conventional religious practice, the Kaddish symphony (and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah, which incorporates haftarah trope into its melodies) documents his use of verbal and musical religious language to address spiritual questions of the day. Conductor Marin Alsop, a Bernstein protégé, observed upon her recording of Kaddish symphony in 2012 (the album was released in 2015):
The question of faith is woven through every Bernstein piece — even when there is no obvious religious component. For Bernstein, the crisis of the 20th century was a crisis of faith. What can we believe in when mankind has the desire and capability to destroy itself?
Central to the musical structure of Kaddish symphony are three settings of the Kaddish liturgical text. The work opens with an “Invocation” in which the speaker urgently declares, as if this were the final opportunity, a desire to recite Kaddish. Longing is mixed with skepticism if not cynicism as it emerges that the prayer is directed to a “betrayed and rejected … angry [and] wrinkled” God to whom the speaker prays, a God who might, but might not, be of assistance to a shattered world: “Surely You can cause and command a touch of order here below on this one, dazed speck.”
These early sections of Kaddish symphony are in a somber and tension-filled atonal musical language that periodically alternates with and gradually moves towards greater consonance. Alsop observes that Bernstein used this musical device as a metaphor for his heightened concern and hopes for society: “He conveys this crisis musically by pitting atonality against tonality. For Bernstein, atonality captured the musical end of civilization.” The speaker declares that this may be a “final Kaddish for you, for me, and for these I love … ” and the speaker begins the first recitation of Kaddish. It is continued by the chorus and orchestra in an anguished, ecstatic sonic display, as if the musical language of Schoenberg’s 12-tone opera Moses und Aron were animated by syncopated rhythms and juxtaposed with repetitions of single notes, culminating in declarations of “Amen!”
Maybe humanity can be bettered and thus be more worthy of love. With that love, maybe there could be a brighter human future.
Following this first Kaddish recitation, the speaker offers pleas that quickly turning to rage against the object, or is it target of this praise. In a reimaging of early Hasidic rabbi, Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev’s trial language complaint against God,” the speaker presents a Din Torah (trial) indictment: “Always You have heard my voice, and always You have answered me with a rainbow, a raven, a plague, something” but now, “You show me nothing at all.” Humanity has become a “stubborn image” of divinity, “shattered, extinguished, banished” and “runs free … with his new-found fire, avid for death, voluptuous, complete and final death.” Therefore, the speaker charges a God who, along with humanity, has lost faith: “Lord God of Hosts, I call You to account! You let this happen …” Having forgotten the rainbow, divinity is but a “Tin God” whose “bargain … crumples in my hand!” Angular, angst-filled orchestral music returns, culminating with the chorus seemingly affirming the accusations by singing “Amen, amen!” as the musical drama heightens, dispersing in a brief cloud of individual-intoned choruses (think of György Ligeti’s choral music in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey).
Following this emotional catharsis, the speaker’s tone shifts to empathy and solace for a vulnerable, fallible God who created foolish, mortal humans. “If I could comfort You, hold You against me, rock You and rock You into sleep.” The second Kaddish recitation is a lovely, gentle, lyrical and tonal lullaby sung by the soprano soloist. Within this lengthy Andante section, the lilting melody is joined by the chorus to project a new-found sense of optimism, from which the speaker offers to partner with God, to help “invent Your dream, dream it with You, as gently as I can … ” and thereby help “recreate Your image, and love him again.” Maybe humanity can be bettered and thus be more worthy of love. With that love, maybe there could be a brighter human future.
The speaker offers God a real world of human possibility and suffering from which an actual future is possible for humanity.
In the next “Scherzo” movement, the speaker promises to take divinity by the hand and “take You to Your favorite star, a world most worthy of Your creation.” But this idealized world, maybe before the creation of humanity, is a reality in which “sunbeams dance” albeit with “every immortal cliché intact.” It is a world without pain, but one where there “is nothing to dream. Nowhere to go. Nothing to know.” It is not the real world of both regret and possibility. The speaker presents divinity with a reality test. On one hand, “You have regretted me. But not these—the perfected ones: They are beyond regret, or hope.” On the other: “They do not exist … .” The speaker offers God a real world of human possibility and suffering from which an actual future is possible for humanity: “Come back with me, to the Star of Regret… where dreaming is real, and pain is possible.” If only God could witness if not experience that pain, there is a chance that the Divine “will have to believe it … [and thereby] You will recognize Your image at last.” Only in the real world where humans live are there “Real-life marvels! Genuine wonders! Dazzling miracles!”, a world where there is not only a Divine contribution, the burning bush, but also a rock that can be struck by humans (as the biblical Moses did in defiance) causing water to gush.
This is the imperfect world where human action yields agency and promise, however much it necessarily involves pain. This human dream is based upon a new covenant with its own rainbow to behold. The speaker implores divinity to witness this rainbow and believe in the covenant it symbolizes. God should praise and show faithfulness by reciting Kaddish, even if the sight of that rainbow is painful to God’s eyes. The speaker urges the Divine remain eyes-open: “don’t close them now. Don’t turn away. Look. Do You see how simple and peaceful it all becomes, once You believe?” A lilting melody in the strings remains angular but softened from some of the earlier musical material. Equally striking is the stepwise countermelody in the bass.
Some have likened the flavor of this section to Aaron Copland, but it really reveals the lyrical side of the Bernstein we all know as much as do the syncopated rhythms that abound in Kaddish symphony.
The boys’ choir begins to sing the third iteration of Kaddish in the brief opening of the “Finale.” The speaker interjects, imploring God to remain in a dream state, however painful it may be to lose the image of an idealized perfection and “believe in me and You shall see the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, just as You planned.” The boys’ choir presents an airy, songful, contrapuntal Kaddish, punctuated by periodic drama, is revealed to be literally the voices of God’s children calling, “chanting your praises,” and with that, the Divine dream state comes to an end.
In the latter portion of the “Finale,” the longest segment of Kaddish symphony, “The dawn is chilly, but the dawn has come.” The music begins with a more atonal, angular approach and renewed tension, but this gives way to lyricism restored. Many musical elements from the previous movements appear, as the speaker begins: “Good morning, Father…” Articulated with empathy and gentleness, we learn that the children’s Kaddish has been dreamt in a Divine-human partnership “wakened alive” with a new covenant, jointly “bound by our rainbow. That is our covenant … not quite the covenant we bargained for, so long ago” when the human was “a helpless infant.” “We have both grown older, You and I. And I am not sad, and You must not be sad… look tenderly again at me, at us, at all these children of God here in this sacred house. And we shall look tenderly back to You… We are one, after all, You and I: Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.”
The symphony comes to a conclusion with a flowery, contrapuntal final Kaddish recitation sung jointly by the soprano soloist, joined by a boys’ choir and full choir. It is akin to a love song with a Kaddish text, representing divinity and humanity in partnership. Unbounded hope is restored and celebrated, capped by a sustained “Amen!”
We the listeners know that things have not worked out as Bernstein hoped, even in 1963. This was the world that witnessed conflicts across the globe, heightened political turmoil at home, paired with partial successes in civil rights, an eventual end to the Cold War, yet persistent war, famine and disease juxtaposed with the rise of a new Gilded Age. Renewed hope for a resolution of conflicts in the Mideast. The Camp David accords immediately followed Bernstein’s revision of Kaddish Symphony. This was not to reflect a changing world, but to pare down what he felt was excessive verbiage, and to adapt it in response to the death of his spouse, actress Felicia Montealegre, for whom the speaker’s part was devised.
Can you allow the cosmos, however you may conceive of divinity, to care for you?
Bernstein’s conception of Montealegre’s role had also been intentionally gendered female, reflecting his view that the female voice represented an empathetic side of humanity. An empathic and, at times angry yet modulated tone was much needed to address the aching, imperfect deity that human beings, with new-found agency, needed to console and rally to join in partnership. After Montealegre’s death in 1977, Bernstein rendered the role as gender neutral. Its subsequent recitation by Michael Wager demonstrated that a male voice could be just as gentle, pointed without rage, and thus effective. As viewers of the recent Bernstein film know, Montealegre was a magnificent actress; replacing her with another woman must have felt unimaginable to Bernstein. Hearing her rendition on the 1964 recording by the Boston Symphony Orchestra is well worth the experience.
Bernstein’s Kaddish symphony raises many useful and provocative questions in preparation for Yom Kippur. Do you spend sufficient reflective time considering your place in the life of the world? In what ways do you take responsibility for your own life and for this world? Are there ways, unconscious or conscious, that you deflect responsibility, assuming or hoping that others, human or Divine, will take care things? To what degree do you treat yourself and others as images of the Divine? What image of the Divine do you use as a guide? How do you relate as a responsible partner with the natural and other-than-human world? Have you traversed a growth in maturity, reflective of Bernstein’s trajectory for human responsibility in Kaddish Symphony? What do you learn from disappointment and anger at feelings of powerlessness? Where do they lead you? Is your self-concept under- or overly empowered? Can you allow the cosmos, however you may conceive of divinity, to care for you? Do you care for it as if you were in partnership?
Bernstein, in his writings, considered parallels between his treatment of God and the relationship of human beings to divinity with his relationship with his father. One can use the work and the evolution of this relationship within it as food for thought about your own relationship with your parents and/or children, but also with your relationships with and conceptions of divinity, be they Kaplanian or other.
Some suggestions for listening: first listen without, then with, and again without looking at the libretto. Ponder what the vocal elements, the instrumentals and the texts suggest to you, independent of one another and in various combinations. Ultimately, it is the entire package that matters, but listening for specific elements will help you more fully appreciate the work. Listen to appreciate this wonderful work and listen as an aid for personal reflection.
Recorded versions to consider:
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Sony, 1967.
Israel Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor. Deutsche Grammophon, 1978.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz, conductor,
Naxos (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music), 2007.
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor. Naxos, 2015.
Librettos and commentary:
Liner notes by Jack Gottlieb and revised text, both from the 1978 Bernstein recording, with additional commentary following the Bernstein centennial in 2018:
https://leonardbernstein.com/works/view/48/symphony-no-3-kaddish
The original, unedited libretto, with more detailed musical analysis by Gottlieb may be found packaged with the 1967 Bernstein recording.
Marin Alsop, “Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Kaddish’ Symphony: A Crisis Of Faith,” NPR blog “Deceptive Cadence,” Sept. 29, 2012.https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/09/29/161824558/leonard-bernsteins-kaddish-symphony-a-crisis-of-faith]
