A recurrent theme in these pages is how frequently a religious upbringing informs the creation of art, even if the artist has lapsed from faith or practice. The American musician Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) is, though, a curious instance of the workings of spiritual inspiration. Respectful to the Judaism in which he was raised, Bernstein did produce some compositions from close to home – including The Dybbuk and his Symphony No 3, Kaddish – but he also wrote two major pieces of church music.These were his Mass (1971), a theatrical piece that merges the Tridentine Roman Rite with Hebrew and secular texts, and Chichester Psalms (1965), originally written for Anglican liturgy.The circumstances in which Bernstein came to set the psalms for a cathedral in West Sussex are the subjec