“Having already had a wonderful collaboration with the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, I was very excited when their Director of Music, Cathy Heller Jones, approached me with a request to set this beautiful prayer for peace. Although the prayer is nearly 2,000 years old, its sentiments are needed now, more than ever.

I use the first two lines as a refrain, which has a strong Jewish modal feel about it. Starting low and in a minor harmony, it rises and becomes more major, with an entreaty for hope. Cathy and I share Polish roots, so she asked me to bring that into the musical mix. For the two verses, I have used a common Polish mode, in the right hand of the organ, which has a raised fourth and flattened seventh.

The setting finishes with a passionate and optimistic C major chord, in ardent hope that our prayer is heard.

The piece is dedicated to the respective commissioners parents to Rebecca Tennen and Seymour Roberts for Cathy Heller Jones, and to Geoff and Patricia Head for Sue Head.

I am hugely grateful to Cathy Heller Jones and Sue Head for this commission and to Senior Rabbi Alexandra Wright for very patiently recording the Hebrew text and supplying a word-for-word translation.”

—Roxanna Panufnik, 30 April 2024