Music and Audio © Alexander Massey 26 May 2019

יִשְׂמְחוּ בְמַלְכוּתְך שׁוֹמְרֵי שַׁבָּת וְקֽוֹרְאֵי עֹֽנֶג

עַם מְקַדְּשֵׁי שְׁבִיעִי כֻּלָּם יִשְׂבְּעוּ וְיִתְעַנְּגוּ מִטּוּבֶֽךָ

וּבַשְּׁבִיעִי רָצִֽיתָ בּוֹ וְקִדַּשְׁתּוֹ חֶמְדַּת יָמִים אוֹתוֹ קָרָֽאתָ זֵֽכֶר לְמַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית

They shall rejoice in Your kingdom, those who keep Shabbat and call it a delight;

The people who sanctify the seventh day, will all be fulfilled and delighted with Your goodness;

And You found pleasure in the seventh day and sanctified it, the most precious of days, You called it, in commemoration of the work of Creation.

There are several popular tunes that people sing to this text on Shabbat, all of them lively and rhythmic. And to fit the irregular line lengths and non-metrical phrases into the metrical musical patterns, words and phrases sometimes land awkwardly, with the wrong syllabic emphasis, or are arbitrarily repeated or disconnected from their grammatical context. As a result, for all the vigour of the music, the meaning and spirit of the actual text can become obscured.

Given that the prayer comes during the Amidah, the intense, intimate sequence of prayers that form a spiritual point of gravity in the morning service, I wanted to explore creating a more introspective musical setting. This also provided an opportunity to bring out some of the yearning that we can feel at Shabbat. Feeling, or generating, unconditional joy or gratitude does not always come easily; it can even seem naïve or insincere in the face of one’s own life challenges or the troubles in the wider world of which we are all too well aware.

So this musical setting reflects some of this ambivalence. Read more ›