In 1965, Leonard Bernstein took a sabbatical year from his duties as music director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1964, the busy Mr. Bernstein had just finished conducting Verdi’s opera “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 1966, would make his debut at the Vienna State Opera, conducting the same work. But he reserved 1965 to concentrate on composing.

“In the course of that year,” recalled Bernstein, “I had the luxury to do nothing but experiment. And part of my experimentation was to try to write some pieces that, shall we say, were less old-fashioned. I wrote a lot of music, 12-tone music and avant-garde music of various kinds, and a lot of it was very good, but I threw it all away. What I came out with at the end of the year was a piece called ‘Chichester Psalms,’ which is simple and tonal and as pure B-flat as any piece you can think of… because that was what I honestly wished to write.”

Bernstein conducted the premiere performance at Lincoln Center with the Camerata Singers and the New York Philharmonic on July 15th, 1965, and later in the month, traveled to Chichester Cathedral in England, which had commissioned the work in the first place, for the British premiere of his “Chichester Psalms.”