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Joan Szymko

Joan Szymko is widely regarded as an outstanding composer of choral music in America today. With a catalog of over 100 choral works in print, her music is sung regularly at choral festivals and competitions across North America and abroad and for nearly two decades has been heard on stage or in sessions at every...

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Joan Szymko Music

Eli, Eli (SSAA)

Name: Eli, Eli (SSAA)
SKU: JS-016
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

A beautiful and timeless prayer. This setting was composed with the author in mind; a brave, determined fiercely intelligent and independent young woman.

fall, sacred, secular, spring, summer, winter

Difficulty: 4

JS-016

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Alternative Versions

Eli, Eli

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SSAA with Cello

Penned in 1943, Hannah Szenes’s moving poem “A Walk to Caesarea,” is a beautiful and timeless prayer. This setting was composed with the author in mind; a brave, determined fiercely intelligent and independent young woman. Szenes, having left Budapest for Palestine in 1939, joined a rescue mission in 1943 as a British trained paratrooper in order to rescue Hungarian Jews from being deported to the death camps by the Germans. She was captured, tortured and executed by firing squad late in 1944.

Text

Hebrew and English

אלי, אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם

My God, My God,
I pray that these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The rush (rustle) of the waters,
The crash of the heavens
The prayer of the heart (of man)

– Hannah Szenes

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