Psalmprovisation 122, Movement 1

This movement pertains to vs. 1&2:

1 I rejoiced with those who said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
2 Our feet are standing
in your gates, Jerusalem.

I will attempt to explain the thought process behind the piece. If nothing else, it may provide what one long time friend and equally long time detractor (!) calls 'needed context':

I am endeavoring to envision the 'House of the Lord" or 'Standing [in the gates of] Jerusalem' from the perspective of the Psalmist:

So the joy is colored by awe and possibly tinged with fear and uncertainty.

Seven (the number of perfection) chimes at the beginning herald the opening of the piece which seems (IMO!) to evolve out of chaos; the rhythm appears to coalesce out of disparate elements.

The bells may sound mournful at first especially being undergirded by the synthetic bass rumble (with sub-sonics if the speakers allow for it!). This is to beg the question: Are mourning and joy necessarily separate? Or can we only know joy in relationship to sorrow?

Full organ, announced by crash cymbals interrupts the still uncertain amalgamation of tonal and rhythmic elements. The organ moves (for me at least) to a place of (tonic!) certainty.

Full organ gives way to introspection (after all, in a world of suffering, shouldn't any joy - or certainly for that matter - be analyzed, at least a little?)

The short movement closes with a more quiet (and decidedly poly-modal) joyfulness.