The piece is broken up into the seven days of creation, and to each day there two parts.

The first part of each day is the Biblical text, sung in Hebrew by a Bass/Baritone soloist. The melody that he sings is the traditional Ashkenazi melody as sung in the synagogue. That same melody or ‘trope’ is consistent throughout the piece, so there is a kind of continuity as it moves from one day to the next. The orchestral accompaniment for these movements is light – strings, harp, percussion ( which provides the sense of God’s heartbeat throughout) and an occasional flute.  A group of high sopranos are also featured in these.

The second part of each day  employs the full orchestra and choir. The majesty and grandeur of these first days of  creation evoke many different musical moods, from the sound of ‘all living creatures’ to the almost inaudible sound of grass and herbs growing up through the dark earth. Because the feel of the first part of each day is very similar due to the melody of the text, I won’t try to describe them, except to say that the tempo changes sightly from day to day.

One thing to note – “so there was evening and there was morning, the —–day”   Each new day begins with the evening. This is very much adhered to in Jewish life. My response ( or you could call it ‘my interpretation’ of each day will often be drawn from a particular aspect of that day.

DAY 1

Begins with a sense of the ‘darkness in the face of the deep’ and  of the ‘spirit hovering over the face of the water’.  Something is about to happen.  And it certainly does, when God says ‘Let there be light! And there was light’   I felt that nothing could contain all that needed to happen in that moment musically. Definitely an explosion.  Not the sun, but LIGHT itself.  ( that’s another discussion!)

DAY 2

Separating the waters above and below….  The voices of the choir sing back and forth to one another. High and low.

 DAY 3

On this day, I chose to focus on two aspects.
“Let the waters be gathered together into one place”   I had the sense of a huge ‘shift’ from one side to the other, and then a settling into place.
Now that the waters are separated from the land, then comes to possibility of things growing on the earth…. And here I chose to depict the very intimate sounds of plants growing… depicted by the use of woodblocks and the choir together.

 DAY 4

“Let there be lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night”  The high soprano voices lift us up into the heavens right from the start. Everything about this day seems to be about ‘sparkling’ and ‘twinkling’   I particularly love the verse that says that ‘God created the two great lights. The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the earth.  And the stars.  (almost in parenthesis! )  I chose to highlight that, with it being quieter, with the sound of the triangle….

DAY 5

This begins with all the low instruments of the orchestra,  painting a picture of the ‘deep sea creatures’.  In contrast we hear the very high sounds of the flutes and piccolo. Everything is happening in the sky, including the sound of the flapping of birds wings, created on hand drums,  as if right up close as they furiously fly through the sky. Imagine, everything from deep in the waters to high in the sky just teeming with life.

DAY 6

On this final day of God creating cattle, and every kind of beast, I found myself trying to imagine every creature I could think of! You can hear the sound of hoofs, and if you listen carefully you may hear the trumpeting of an elephant!

And then comes the climax to it all, as God says “Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness….. so God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them- male and female he created them”
Here you will hear the music change, as it goes into a lilting ¾ rhythm.  It becomes clear that all that God had created up until this point was for these ones – male and female.

God created it all so that He would say to ‘have dominion’ and to ‘be fruitful and multiply.
This was the climax of Creation, all in order to share the ‘goodness’ of it with mankind.    At the end of each day we read ‘and He saw that is was good’   until this 6^th day when we read “and God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.

DAY 7
Now everything is finished and in place, and God rests from all his creating. This final movement begins ‘in the heavens’. High angelic voices fill the air, soaring to the very highest notes in an atmosphere of rest and timelessness.  As it draws to a close, a new rhythm breaks in, as though all creation could not hold back from singing a song of praise to the Creator God, ending the piece with a glorious and joyful ‘Hallelu-yah’