When I was still at school, I had the extraordinary experience of singing this piece with massed choirs and full orchestra, at the Festival Hall. I tried very hard to find you the counter-tenor that I sang with all those years ago because he had one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard.

However, failing that, I found this stunning version sung by the choir of Clare College, Cambridge,with soloist Lawrence Zazzo….

When I was still at school, the arts section of a national newspaper reported the arrival of a celebrated American production of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms from Carnegie Hall. It had apparently been touring to rave reviews from even the most jaded of critics. The soloist was a young Rhodes scholar. I adored the Chichester Psalms from the moment I first heard them. That was preparing for and then singing them with my school choir at the Royal Festival Hall in this very same production, featuring this same soloist. We sang it with a full orchestra, as the opening piece in a Christmas concert.

Each school had been asked to practice in isolation, learning the piece phonetically in Yiddish, the language it had been written in. Eventually, all the, boys only, girls only, co-educational, choirs came together in a couple of grand dress rehearsals. Singing it for the first time with full orchestra and massed choirs, rather than one piano, was exhilarating. The second movement, the Lord’s Prayer, opens with a flourish on the harp. Then the familiar notes of the psalm seem to hover above a haunting melody like jewels hanging on the air. Gradually, to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals, the piece evolves into a kind of battle hymn, before returning to a gentle reprise of the initial theme.

At this first rehearsal, a tall, immensely broad shouldered, well-muscled young black man was standing at the back. He looked as if he should be taking part in a Mr Universe contest, not listening to massed choirs sing. Then as the orchestra swooped into the familiar, sweet lyrical notes of the pivotal section, the Lord’s Prayer, he stepped forward and the most hauntingly beautiful counter tenor voice spiralled out of his throat, upward into the rafters…

“Adonai, ro-I, loh ehsar, binot day, shey yah but sehni, Al may mnu hot, gad naa lenii…”

Every member of that massed choir, and there were about 500 of us as I remember, turned as one to marvel at the beauty and purity of tone. It was utterly, intoxicating, mesmerising, bewitching…it was, as Bernstein intended it to be, a call to listen, a call to wonder, a call to prayer.

Judge for yourself…..