He derived the music from an earlier piano composition, and later included it in his Jubilee Games in 1988, and in their expansion to the Concerto for Orchestra in 1989, calling the movement now Benediction.

As the orchestra's first American conductor and conducting the New York Philharmonic for the first time, the event was widely publicised and made him well known.

[2][3] The text is the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24–26), which serves to conclude the liturgy of traditional morning services,[2] in English: The music began as a piano miniature, part of 13 Anniversaries, from No.

[4] The long concert began with piano pieces by Chopin played by Vladimir Horowitz, had six songs sung by Frank Sinatra in the middle, and ended with the final movement from Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, conducted by Zubin Mehta.

He added Opening prayer as a middle movement in a revised version for the first performance in the United States in which he conducted the orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall in 1988.