From the conductor: John Nelson recalls the beginnings of Songs of Bathsheba...

A number of years ago, a friend shared with me her idea for Soli Deo Gloria to commission an opera based on the biblical character Bathsheba, King David's mistress/wife. It could offer an intriguing perspective, she suggested, certainly a women's perspective, on one of the most dramatic accounts in the Bible. And what could be more poignant than a musical portrayal of this tragic story turned beautiful by grace? Alas, Soli Deo Gloria was not quite ready for the challenge of commissioning an opera, but we continued to muse on the idea.

The next step in the birth of the piece is difficult to speak of because it involves the death of a dear friend, Jody Nordlof, beloved wife of Richard Nordlof, one of Soli Deo Gloria's principal supporters. Jody was a breath of sunshine, a gracious and jubilant person who made every room light up with her presence. She was also a fine singer and shared with her husband a love of new music. It was a deep hardship to lose Jody in April 2002 after her courageous four-year battle with cancer. Sometime thereafter, Richard asked me if Soli Deo Gloria would consider commissioning a work in her memory.

My immediate response was to commit myself to finding the right composer to create a work for soprano, chorus, and orchestra on a text relating to a woman, all in Jody's honor. Months passed without any clear signal until October 2002, when I found myself talking to the brilliant young Israeli composer, Gil Shohat, in Paris. Shohat, then twenty-nine years of age, was already the most decorated composer in Israel with nine symphonies and three operas to his credit. I found his music colorful, expressive, and capable of extraordinary ventures into different avenues of sound. In the middle of our conversation my memory was stirred and I asked him what he would think of composing a piece for soprano, chorus, and orchestra on the subject of Bathsheba. His eyes widened, "I've thought often about writing an opera based on Bathsheba!" then continued by saying that he found the idea of a soliloquy more powerful. To that I added the idea of mixing Bathsheba's words with the words of the fourth penitential psalm, David's outpouring of grief, guilt, and remorse following his sins of rape and murder.

In a second conversation with the composer, he told me that he was in contact with Shin Shifra, one of Israel's leading poets, who was so taken with the idea that she wrote the libretto straight away. I must admit that I was taken aback by the text at first reading. I found it unrelentingly bitter. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to read it to several women whose intuition I deeply respected, including the woman from whom the Bathsheba idea originated. Their very positive response illuminated for me the libretto's spiritual core: when mingled with the grace, forgiveness, and redemption David sought in his psalm, the visceral angst of the Bathsheba prose becomes even more real, effective, and in the end, beautiful.

The outcome of it all is a fifty minute cantata for soprano (Bathsheba, sung in English), chorus (David's psalm sung in Hebrew), and orchestra. It is one of the most dramatic and beautiful works I have come across in years.