Readers of my web page are invited to acquire the new 60 minute CD of music that my wife and I have prepared.  We are commemorating our many years of music ministry with this collection of classical, contemporary, and original compositions.  This is a non-profit venture and I am offering this CD at my cost for $12 including shipping and handling.

       Here is a table of contents:

    1. Amazing Grace - traditional  (vocal and piano)
    2. Be Not Afraid - by Robert Duford (vocal and piano)
    3. A dramatic reading from an ancient text (with piano background)
    4. Restless Is the Heart - by Bernadette Farrell (vocal and piano)
    5. Cuba - by Carmen Rodriquez (Spanish vocal and piano)
    6. Stabat Mater -  by Theodore Dubois  (tenor & soprano duet with piano and organ)
    7. One Bread One Body - melody by John Foley (piano paraphrase)
    8. On Eagles Wings - by Michael Joncas (vocal and piano)
    9. La Vierge à Midi - French poem by Paul Claudel (piano background)
    10. Stay with Me, Jesus - by Titus Brandsma & James Boyce (vocal and piano)
    11. By Name I Have Called You - by Carey Landry (vocal and organ)
    12. The Cry of the Poor - melody by John Foley (piano paraphrase)
    13. Holy Darkness - by Daniel Schutte (vocal and piano)
    14. Psalm 137 "By the Waters of Babylon" - by Franz Liszt
        (soprano,women's chorus, harp, gypsy violin, organ, piano)
    15. Danny Boy  (vocal and piano)

N.B. All royalties for use of the above have been paid and copyright permissions granted.

    If you are interested send a check for $12 to:    Richard Cross
                                                                            24 Summit Street
                                                                            Tarrytown, NY 10591

Some notes on Psalm 137 by Franz Liszt

        Translation (from German)

        By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
        And we hung our harps on the willow trees.
        Our captors told us: "Sing your song"
        To frolic in our sadness.
        "Sing a song of Zion."  How can we sing to the Lord in a foreign land?
        Jerusalem, if I forget you let my right hand be forgotten.
        Let my tongue cling to my mouth if I forget you, Jerusalem.

        Scoring:  soprano, gypsy violin, harp, piano, harmonium and women's chorus.

        Commentary:

                From his childhood Franz Liszt (1811-1886) developed a profound religious faith.  His father, Adam Liszt, had once been a Franciscan novice and Franz himself agonized over a religious vocation at various times in his early years

                Although spiritual themes such as the struggles between good and evil pervade his music, it was during his later years that Liszt devoted his greatest efforts to the composition and reform of church music.

                Liszt wrote Psalm 137 in 1857 near the end of his years at Weimar.  Two years later came the tragic death of his 20 year old son, Daniel.   Then, in 1862, Liszt lost his  daughter, Blandine.  At age 50, Liszt abandoned a decade long effort to marry the Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein and subsequently entered the Oratory of the Madonna del Rosario.
He became a cleric and received the four minor orders of the church.  His remaining days were spent living a portion of each year in Rome, Budapest and Weimar.  He was much admired by Pius X who called him "My Palestrina."

                The Abbé Liszt revised Psalm 137 in 1864 during the period of spiritual crisis and renewal mentioned above.  It is said that the work was originally inspired by a painting,  "The Mourning Jews by the Waters of Babylon" by Edouard Bendemann.  Liszt's setting of the psalm has been described as "peerless and ecstatic."1   It is a Hungarian Gypsy piece in that it has a rhapsodic melody  based on the Gypsy scale intoned by the violin  and then taken up by the soprano. The passing from a minor to major key expresses "a transformation from doubt and despair to hope and transfiguration."2 This  theme is most appropriate for the Church of the Transfiguration where Kathleen and I are ministers of music.

                "When the poet, languishing in captivity, sees before his eyes with growing agitation the image of his homeland, of his sacred city, glimmering before him, a women's choir joins him to raise his supplication to the heights of longing and hope." 3

1. Frank Cooper, University of Miami, in The American Organist, July, 1986.
2. Derek Watson. Liszt. New York: Schirmer Books,  1989.
3. Dezso Legany.  Liszt and His Country (1869-1873). Budapest:  Corvina Kiado, 1963.