One of a number of works inspired by Cage's love of Erik Satie's music, this consists of several mesostics for solo voice that were derived from Biblical verses interspersed with cabaret songs for voice and piano by Satie. I have no idea what the relation is, if any, between Satie and the Bible verses. (Cage enjoyed combining completely unrelated things into a single piece, so this may be just another instance of that.)
This is as much Satie as it is Cage. As far as I can tell, the Satie songs are played completely straight, not altered by chance operations. Plus, they comprise more than half the running time of the piece. The reason for all this Satie is that this was conceived as part of the larger work The First Meeting of the Satie Society, a tribute to Satie involving writings, music, visual art, etc by a variety of different people.
It functions perfectly well on its own terms, however. The mesostics have a simple, quite pretty melody and a rather lonely mood. Although the cabaret songs are upbeat in themselves, they become rather more wistful when interspersed with the mesostics. Ignoring the Biblical lyrics, it gives the impression of longing and nostalgia: it's like an old and bygone singer is reminiscing alone about her past, and the cabaret songs are flashbacks to a happier time. The impression of the cabaret parts being flashbacks, mere memories remote in time, would be reinforced in a live performance as they are to be sung away from the stage in separate rooms, giving them a literal remoteness in space. This remoteness is achieved in the recording by mixing them at a lower volume and with less reverb than the mesostics.
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