Prayer

Julius Chajes (1910–1985) was a highly accomplished virtuoso concert pianist as well as conductor who settled in America as a refugee from the Third Reich. It was as a composer that he made his most enduring contribution to the music of American Jewry—to the American Synagogue, largely in the Reform milieu but also in many Conservative synagogues, as well as to the secular Jewish concert repertoire of his adopted country. He came to America in 1938, following his receipt of two prizes from the Jüdische Kulturbund in Berlin for choral works the previous year. His American reputation quickly took root, and his Psalm 142 for mixed chorus and organ was performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair; at the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations 1942 convention; and at the annual meeting and concert of the American Guild of Organists

Chajes's catalogue ranges from works for full symphony orchestra to concert choral settings—a number of which were widely performed throughout the United States during the 1940s and 1950s by Jewish choral ensembles—to chamber pieces and numerous songs; and some of his prayer settings became standard fare in synagogue services. His operatic cantata The Promised Land was written to commemorate Israel's tenth anniversary, and his three-act opera, Out of the Desert, spanning Jewish history in the Near East from the biblical account of the exodus from Egypt to the modern State of Israel, received its world premiere in 1966.

"Prayer" was published by Transcontinental in 1979. Based on a traditional melody by J. Neumann, it is in true cantorial style - a style very hard to bring off on the organ. It is a moving and highly emotional piece.