PSALMS OF JOY AND SORROW THE BOOK OF PSALMS AND ITS MUSICAL INTERPRETATIONS Common to the liturgies, histories, and spirit of Judaism and...
PSALMS OF JOY AND SORROW
THE BOOK OF PSALMS AND ITS MUSICAL INTERPRETATIONS
Common to the liturgies, histories, and spirit of Judaism and Christianity, the Book of Psalms is one of the most widely familiar and most frequently quoted books of the Hebrew Bible. As literature, the Psalms are also basic to Western culture. In terms of notated music alone, their continuum as an inspiration for musical interpretations and expressions stretches back in time for more than ten centuries; and their unnotated traditions of musical rendition predate Christianity, extending to Jewish antiquity and the Temple era.
Literary and Religious Content
The Psalms have been cited as manifestations of a form of popular theology, in the most positive sense of that perception. This is because they encompass a broad spectrum of human experience vis-à-vis God—rooted in the special relationship provided by the framework of the biblical covenants—while avoiding the level of abstract or philosophical theology that would be limited to scholarly hierarchies.
The Psalms have been viewed by theologians as expressions of man's thirst for moral, ethical, and spiritual grounding and his search for a guiding faith—all of which amounts essentially, in theological terms, to man's pursuit of God. "In the Torah and the [books of the] Prophets," wrote biblical scholar Nahum Sarna in his trenchant study of representative Psalms, aptly titled Songs of the Heart,
God reaches out to man. The initiative is His. The message is His. He communicates, we receive…. In the Psalms, human beings reach out to God. The initiative is human. The language is human. We make an effort to communicate. He receives…. The human soul extends itself beyond its confining, sheltering, impermanent house of clay. It gropes for an experience of the divine Presence.
Unique among liturgies in their singular blend of majestic grandeur, lofty sentiments, and poignant simplicity, the Psalms embrace virtually every basic human emotion and mood, always in the context of faith. Their subject matter may be classified according to several basic poetic typologies, including hymns of praise and thanksgiving; elegies; pilgrim songs; meditations; paeans to God in history; celebrations of God's glory and greatness in nature; and poems of moral-ethical instruction.
The Psalms pulsate with reflections of life: its tribulations, its moments of elation, the search for consolation in times of distress, the natural urge to offer gratitude, the quest for justice (including the natural if base human inclination for retribution), the hunt for a path to contentment, the struggle to maintain faith in the face of diversity, the tendency toward doubt when practitioners of evil seem immune to defeat or justice, the spiritual struggles of transgressors to find their way, the hunger for virtuousness, and the pursuit of triumph over despair. Thus, despite their Judaic origin and solid Judeo-Christian association, the Psalms need not be restricted to any single people, religious group, or era. Their ageless attraction abides in their universal sentiment and their universally applicable teachings. In that sense, their resonance transcends both time and geographical space.
Etymology
Notwithstanding the secondary applicability of the term to certain apocryphal religious poems, to some non-Hebrew postbiblical poetic texts of the early Church, and possibly to some embedded hymns or songs in other Hebrew biblical books (e.g., shirat hayam [Song of the Sea], Ex. 15:1–18, or shir moshe [Song of Moses], Deut. 32)—and despite its legitimate, broader generic usage as a typological label for poetic expression unrelated to religious literature—it must be acknowledged that the word psalm, or psalms, now invariably calls to mind the biblical Book of Psalms, or the Psalter. This is the opening book (since earliest printed Bibles) of k'tuvim (Hagiographa, or sacred writings)—the third of the three sections of the tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible.
The English designation psalm derives from its cognate in the Latin Vulgate: Liber Psalmorum, or Psalmi. The Latin singular psalmus in turn came from the Greek psalmos, which means a song or song text specifically sung to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument—and perhaps, by later extension, to instrumental accompaniment in general. The Jewish translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria selected the word psalmos to render the Hebrew mizmor. That word, mizmor, is reserved in the Bible exclusively for this self-contained book within k'tuvim, where it appears in the title or caption of fifty-seven Psalms—but never in the body of those texts. Later, mizmor came more broadly to represent liturgical singing accompanied by instrumental musicians.
Questions have been raised, however, concerning the precision of the use of psalmus to correspond to the Hebrew mizmor. It has been suggested that the Greek-Jewish translators in Alexandria might not have known the precise meaning of the Hebrew word, whose definition, along with other technical terms in the Bible, might long previously have been lost. Nonetheless, psalmos, and then psalmus, became universally accepted, as did the English equivalent, psalm.
The Hebrew name for the Psalter, and for the Psalms as a group, was accepted in rabbinic and subsequent literature as sefer t'hillim—lit., book of praises, or book of songs of praise—even though only one Psalm (145) contains the word praise (t'hilla) in its superscription. Sefer t'hillim is often contracted to tillim, a practice dating to talmudic times. And although a number of individual Psalms would not fall into that category and do not even express praise, the theme nonetheless permeates the Psalms in the aggregate—directly or indirectly, on multiple levels, and in various manifestations of unconditional, objective praise of God. Also, the expression halleluya, which is ubiquitously associated with the Psalms, appears nowhere else in the Bible.
Categories and Divisions
Although the total number of Psalms differs according to variant traditions, divergent or conflicting manuscripts, and alternative systems (in which, for example, what we now accept as two separate Psalms might originally have been a single text), the Psalter as it has come down to us in this present canonized form of the Masoretic text contains 150 Psalms—the number now universally recognized. These are believed to be an amalgam of earlier distinct collections, for example:
- The Korahite Psalms (42, 44–49, 84–85, and 87–88), generally credited to the "sons of Korah," the presumed descendants of the Levite who rebelled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
- The Psalms of Asaph (50 and 73–83, which bear his name), a Levite whom David is said to have appointed as choirmaster in the Temple service (I Chronicles 6:24).
- The Hallel (praise) Psalms (113–118).
- The shir hama'alot Psalms, or "songs of ascent" (120–134), discussed further in the note here to the setting of Psalm 126.
There are also individual Psalms attributed by tradition to, or associated with, other specific biblical personalities. Two Psalms bear Solomon's name, one is linked to Moses and one each to Heman and Etan, who are identified in Chronicles as appointed by David to leadership roles in the vocal and instrumental aspects of the Temple ritual. And there are forty-nine so-called orphan Psalms, which are accepted as anonymous. These are all in addition to the seventy-three Psalms more directly tethered by tradition to Davidic origin or involvement.
The Psalter is divided into five sections, or books. Those divisions are not necessarily designated by separate sectional headings or subtitles in the original Hebrew. Each of the first four books is concluded with a formulaic doxology (i.e., an incipit common to all four doxologies). The final verse of Psalm 89, for example, which concludes Book III, reads barukh adonai l'olam amen v'amen (Worshipped and praised is God unto eternity, amen, and amen). The last book has no such concluding doxology, but concludes with Psalm 150, with its catalogue of musical instruments to be used in praise of God, which is widely regarded as a doxology for the entire Book of Psalms.
It has been proposed that the fivefold division, to which the Midrash alludes in its statement that "Moses gave Israel five books of the Torah, and David gave Israel five books of the Psalms" (Mid. T'hillim), corresponds by design to the Pentateuch—the Five Books of Moses. Another parallel between the distinct contributions of Moses and David may be drawn from their juxtaposed albeit differentiated origin as mentioned in II Chronicles (8:13–14 and 23:18), where Moses' (the Torah's) provision of the sacrificial scheme is correlated with David's institution of liturgical rites in the Temple to accompany it.
Age of the Psalms
The prevailing view adopted by much 19th-century scientific biblical scholarship assigned the Psalms to a period as late in the history of the religion of ancient Israel as the Maccabean-Hasmonaean era (2nd century B.C.E.), postdating the time of David and the Prophets by many centuries. That stance has been virtually rejected and reversed by 20th-century scholars. Based on refocused considerations of evidence in the Septuagint, on linguistic studies that reveal the absence of Hellenistic poetic-literary or theological influence, and on discoveries and comparative analyses of other ancient Near Eastern poetic literatures that predate ancient Israel altogether, scholars now almost universally allow that the canonization of the Psalms as an integral whole must have occurred well in advance of the 2nd century B.C.E., by which time their importance and popularity must have been long established. In this assessment, then, the composition of the Psalms predates substantially the Second Temple era.
The "Psalms of David": Davidic Authorship
Attribution of the Psalms as a corpus to David is a longstanding adoption in popular tradition. Hence, the frequently heard sobriquet for the entire contents of the Psalter—"Psalms of David"—and the ubiquitous image of "David the Psalmist," notwithstanding the aforementioned groups of Psalms that are accepted as the work of others, and despite the fact that actual authorship even of the so-called Davidic Psalms is expressly credited to David nowhere in the Bible. Seventy-three Psalms carry the designation l'david in their superscriptions, and there is the acknowledged possibility of David's hand in the composition of at least some of them. But that designation l'david does not in itself provide any certainty about his authorship, since its precise meaning is not entirely clear. Nor does that designation necessarily have the same connotation in every Psalm where it appears. Various proposals put forth with respect to these particular Psalms include a tradition of Davidic authorship, a dedication to David, possible correlations between the contents of certain Psalms and events in David's life, a Psalm as sung or performed by or for David, and a Psalm text and/or musical rendition from the repertoire of one of the guilds of Temple singers that David is said, in post-Exilic biblical literature, to have instituted.
Nonetheless, a popular interpretation of the designation l'david as reflective of actual Davidic authorship of Books I and II (later extended to the remaining seventy-seven Psalms in Books II–V) became rooted early in the history of the Psalter's compilation and canonization. The colophon to Book II, which follows the doxology at the end of Psalm 72, announces that "the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." It is worth emphasizing that even that statement does not confirm authorship. Moreover, in a departure from a talmudic interpretation, Rashi, the great medieval commentator, suggested that the colophon might apply only to Psalm 72, not to the first seventy-two Psalms as a unit. He proposed that the Psalms are not presented in the Psalter in any chronological order, and that Psalm 72 was composed by David as a prayer on behalf of Solomon when he appointed Solomon as his successor—becoming David's final Psalm.
A talmudic passage suggests David as a quasi-editor and compiler of the Psalter who culled from various sources, as well as the author of some of its contents: "David wrote the Book of Psalms, including in it the work of the elders, namely Adam, Malchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and three sons of Korah" (B.B. 14b). And another talmudic reference alludes to Davidic involvement in the expressions of praise for God: "All the praises which are stated in the Book of Psalms, David uttered each one of them" (Pes. 117a). Neither statement actually asserts original Davidic authorship. Moreover, an outdated assumption—that the Book of Psalms, regardless of authorship, was completed during David's reign—was disputed as early as the Middle Ages by such major commentators as Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Kimchi. For example, the origin of several Psalms was connected to the Babylonian Captivity, which occurred long after David's reign. In any case, it is impossible to ascertain the identity of whoever made the ultimate selection for the compilation, nor more precisely when it was accomplished. It is considered likely that much of the compiling, selection, and editing was done in the time of the scribes who succeeded Ezra and Nehemiah (viz., 4th century B.C.E.).
The traditional association of David with the Psalms and the manner of their musical rendition sits on solid biblical foundations. These include his youthful reputation as an accomplished player of the kinor (a stringed instrument, presumably plucked), his role in inventing or devising musical instruments and in composing or singing lamentations, his distinction as a "sweet singer of Israel," and—perhaps most significant in broader historical terms—the part he played in establishing Jerusalem (and, with it, the Temple and its rituals) as the national and spiritual center of Israel and of the Jewish people—ir david, the City of David.
Poetic Structure
To all intents and purposes, the Psalms—as well as biblical Hebrew in general—may be viewed as predating the introduction of metrical Hebrew poetry to Judaic literature. Yet although they cannot be said to embrace meter in the classical or contemporary sense, the subject has been debated for centuries, beginning before the age of modern biblical scholarship. Nor has this issue been free of its share of charlatans. In the 17th century, one Marcus Meibomius claimed that the secrets of biblical Hebrew meter had been "revealed" to him, and he offered to share them if six thousand people presubscribed to copies of his work at a cost of five pounds sterling each. But he was unable to persuade a sufficient number of potential subscribers, and he died without sharing his revelations. John Jebb remarked in 1820 that "posterity may contentedly endure the deprivation."
In the 19th century, various serious theories emerged—some of them in direct conflict with one another, and some along similar lines as others—which concerned systems of scansions based on enumerations of syllables. It was thought that these scansions might yield a primitive form of meter. These studies stood in contrast to earlier theories based on syllabic stresses and word units. But all such theories have been fraught with reliance on hopelessly hypothetical reconstructions. Efforts at identifying a precise system even of primitive meter in the Psalms are hampered by a lack of critical information. The determined vocalization or vowel deployment in the Masoretic text, upon which we rely, may not in fact always coincide with the actual vocalization and exact pronunciation of the biblical Hebrew poetry in its original state—i.e., at the time of its composition and as represented by the consonant texts.
Whether the Psalms contain any form of meter, and whether their structure can be viewed as a precursor to meter in much later Hebrew poetry, they are nonetheless poetry—in contrast to the clearly prose texts in most of the Bible. And they exhibit poetic structural features, the most significant of which is probably that of internal parallelism— a characteristic that might reflect their composition with the intention of being sung. This parallel structure appears in several forms throughout the Psalms:
- Synonymic: where two half-verses contain essentially the same thought or sentiment, expressed in different but complementary words—one half-verse in response to the other.
- Antithetic: where an idea or thought is reinforced by two half-verses that oppose each other with contrasting statements, one in response to the other.
- Synthetic: where the second of two half-verses responds to the first by completing its statement.
- Climactic: where a single idea or thought is augmented and expanded from line to line (or from verse to verse) with a cumulative, unfolding effect.
This system of pairs of balanced half-verses has been shown to resemble other ancient Near Eastern poetry among Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Egyptian literatures. Although Psalm verses usually comprise two equal or roughly equal parts, some have three or more divisions. The verses are normally grouped in strophes of equal or nearly equal length.
Temple Psalmody
In effect, the Psalter served as the Temple music manual, songbook, and prayerbook. In addition to the discussion in talmudic, Midrashic, and medieval exegetical literature, modern Judaic as well as objective musicological scholarship confirms that Levitical choral singing of the Psalms to instrumental accompaniment occurred along with the sacrificial ceremonies in the ancient Temple. The musical renditions were complementary to that cult, not part of it; the Psalms contain no information about, and no references to, sacrificial procedures, but they appear to have formed the centerpiece of the aesthetic-spiritual dimension. Their messages of personal experience and human emotions were not necessarily negated by their performance by de facto professional musicians—the Levites—nor by their association with the formalized, aristocratic priestly rituals. To the contrary, Temple psalmody may have counterbalanced the more mysterious, anagogical, and symbolic sacrificial system—almost as a tangible reflection of popular expression versus the ultimate patrician manifestation of Israel's religious life at those stages.
Late biblical books, together with some Psalm superscriptions as well as other ancient sources from the region (the 17th-century B.C.E. Annals of Sennacherib, for example), offer some insights into musical matters pertaining to the First Temple, in which choral psalmody can be demonstrated to have played a prominent part. Naturally, thanks to talmudic and other postbiblical descriptions and references, we are in a position to piece together much more about the musical format and practice in the Second Temple, which was inherited from musical models in the First Temple when the service was reconstituted after a forced hiatus of seventy years. Some of these sources offer suggestions about the size, makeup, and training of the Temple choirs, as well as about their performance, although there is disagreement among the rabbis in the Talmud on various related matters (how Hallel was performed, for example). There is ample evidence of antiphonal (two choirs alternating) and responsorial engagement (soloist alternating with choir), which is easily reflective of the parallel structure of the Psalms.
The Superscriptions
Some superscriptions or headings may contain long-forgotten or now obscure instructions and other information pertaining to the musical performance or assigned occasions for their respective Psalms, although interpretation of these superscriptions remains a contested issue among both biblical and musical scholars. Even the simplest purportedly descriptive headings can generate dispute. There is disagreement, for example, concerning the superscriptive lam'natze'ah—whether it should be construed essentially as "to the choirmaster" or "to the conductor," or whether instead it might have referred to a particular song type, to be arranged for those Psalms to which the term is attached.
Other superscriptions appear to refer to particular instruments, of which we can know at most their generic family types or the manner in which they should sound or be played (n'ginot, a string instrument, for example). And, apart from instrumental citations, there are other isolated terms in the body of some Psalms that are believed to be musical indications— higgayon sela (Psalms 9:17), for example, which some authorities suggest is a direction for a solemn, meditative instrumental interlude, while others believe it to be a call for a "murmuring sound" on the kinor. Higgayon, in Psalms 92:4, however, is often translated simply as a "solemn sound." Although various logical and philologically as well as archaeologically grounded propositions have been offered with respect to these matters, few of the terms or references involved can be decoded with absolute precision or certainty. Some of the technical terms might have become obsolete by the time of the Second Temple.
]Musical Adoptions and Contrafacts
Among the most puzzling superscriptions are those that appear either to encase some cryptic metaphor or—as some scholars maintain—to identify some specific known tune or chant to which the attached Psalm should be sung or adapted. Examples include ayelet hashahar (lit., "the hind of the dawn," but often left untranslated) in Psalm 22, and al yonat elem r'hokim at the head of Psalm 56, which translates as "according to the silent dove of those who are distant" (and which the Targum—the Aramaic translation and version of the Bible—interprets as a metaphoric allusion to the religious faithfulness of Israel even when its people are far away from their own cities). Such superscriptions might even have included text incipits of secular songs for use as contrafacts. That such preexisting musical formats and tune identities were thus indicated in some superscriptions is certainly within the realm of reasonable possibility. That position is reinforced by the knowledge that similar practices existed elsewhere in the ancient world. Still, although it is also known that medieval Hebrew poets often assigned or used recognized tunes for their poems, and although stipulating specific known tunes for song texts has been widely perpetuated in many cultures up through the modern era, there is nothing approaching universal scholarly consensus on this issue with respect to the Psalms.
Musical Reconstruction
Students and scholars of psalmody have, through painstaking comparative considerations and examinations, provided much information about the probable nature, formats, components, and features of the musical rendition of the Psalms in the Temple. This includes matters of range, melismatic versus syllabic articulation, predominance of particular tones (reciting tone, finalis, etc.), embellishment, and even aspects of overall ambience. But all of this amounts only to verbal description of the various parameters. It must be emphasized that, especially in the absence of precise musical notation (which, even in much later periods, does not necessarily provide sufficient data for reliable reconstructions anyway), these factors remain more academic and theoretical than artistic or aesthetic.
The same limitations apply to reasonable conjectures based on evidence contained in aspects of psalmody and other chant procedures of the early Church. Some of these elements may have been borrowed and transferred from Judaic traditions and handed down to us as Church music practices evolved.
Notwithstanding the hoopla surrounding musical practice in the ancient Near East as gleaned from archaeological finds (Ugaritic discoveries, for example, concerning a supposed Hurrian cult song predating the Psalms, and its attempted restoration), any performable reconstruction of Temple psalmody with pretensions to aural authenticity would be a naïvely romantic exercise in futility. Even if we can approximate the rhythmic parameters by assuming that they correspond logogenically to the flow of the words, we cannot ascertain the precise modalities, tones, or ordering and sequencing of those tones in terms of melodic substance. Nor can we reflect the vocal or instrumental timbres. And if, indeed, some of the superscriptions do refer to known melodies or chants of the day, we have only their names. We certainly could not reproduce the melodies themselves.
The Psalms in Hebrew Liturgy
Psalms constitute a principal foundation stone of Hebrew liturgy as it developed during the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple. Entire Psalms—as well as partial quotations, references, paraphrases, and influences—permeate the traditional prayerbook, in which, whatever liturgical rite is embraced, no other biblical book is so directly, richly, and consistently represented. Singer's Prayer Book, for example, the Authorized Daily Prayer Book, of the United Synagogue of Great Britain (Orthodox), contains an index of seventy-three Psalms among the various services. And in any typical complete prayerbook there are no fewer than 250 Psalm verses reflected or incorporated in the prayers. Reform prayerbooks, too, are filled with Psalms.
Inclusion of Psalms in the liturgy has been interpreted in part as a resonance of popular identification and involvement— perhaps even demand. A talmudic reference to the recitation of the "daily Psalm" within services states that "the people have adopted the custom of including it" (Sof. 18:1). The eventual pervasiveness of the Psalms within the statutory or legally required prayers as integral components occurred gradually and incrementally—a process that occupied many centuries. Over time, the surrounding nonobligatory liturgy accumulated individual Psalms as well. There is now no non-statutory or "special" service that does not include at least one Psalm.
Psalm recitation is not confined to mandatory services. There are surviving customs of reciting the entire Psalter on various occasions, especially as acts of piety by fervently religious Jews. Hevrot t'hillim—societies of Psalm reciters— have been part of the religious life of many communities, and in contemporary Jerusalem, such a society comprises two distinct groups that divide between them the recitation of the entire Book of Psalms daily at the Western Wall.
Many echoes of psalmody and retentions of psalmodic stylistic features are found among various non-Ashkenazi traditions, especially those with roots in eastern Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and other communities of the so-called Jewish Orient. However, in many of these traditions, Psalm renditions long ago became artificially metrical, often according to specific syllabic patterns. In some cases this was a result of adaptation to metrical tunes.
The composite extant repertoire of Ashkenazi synagogue music, on the other hand, reflects very little in the way of psalmody, even in compositions for Psalm texts. For the most part, these have been informed by the same stylistic forces that have attended cantorial and choral writing for other texts. A handful of 20th-century Psalm settings, most for nonorthodox synagogues, have been based loosely on assumed psalmodic factors and ambience—for example Heinrich Schalit's setting of Psalm 23. But these are exceptions. In more recent years, some synagogue composers have become intrigued by aesthetic portrayals of antiquity, and they have exhibited a renewed interest in illustrating the spirit as well as some of the assumed parameters of psalmody in their settings.
The Psalms in Christian Liturgy
The Psalms provided an obvious wellspring of liturgical material for the early Church, dating from the time when it was still perceived as a Jewish sect, although Psalm usage eventually differed between the Eastern and Western rites. In the Church's initial stages of development, Psalms were adopted for formal worship, and they are believed to have predominated the format in the earliest services. Apart from a few fragmentary bits of earlier evidence, musical notation applicable to Western Church psalmody survives only beginning with the 9th century, as reflected in the earliest Frankish chant books.
In the Roman, or Western, Church, the survival of the tradition of unabridged Psalm singing is most conspicuous in the Office of Vespers (five Psalms); complete Psalms became part of other Offices as well, and of various ceremonies and processions. But in the course of the development of the Mass and other parts of Christian liturgy, Psalms became abbreviated or quoted (sometimes just a single verse). Language, too, was a contributing factor in the divergence of Hebrew and Christian psalmody, since the Church adapted inherited practices to the Latin translation.
In the various Protestant movements, Psalm settings followed the direction in art music development in which the vestiges of psalmody and other chant traditions were largely abandoned. Many composers for the Roman Catholic Church, however, continued for a long time to use aspects of psalmody as bases for their works.
The Protestant Reformation also led to an emphasis on Psalm singing in the vernacular (German, English, and other languages); and to foster congregational or communal singing, metrical versions were created, which often only loosely approximated the original Hebrew. These used strophic melodies that were more like hymn tunes with simple chordal harmonizations. A similar fashion also flourished in 19th- and early-20th-century Reform Jewish worship, both in Germany and in the United States.
Psalms in the Western Classical Music Tradition
With the advent and flowering of polyphony in Europe, artistic Psalm composition proliferated from the 15th century on and became an important feature of the Roman Catholic Church—in the main following earlier artistic treatment of other parts of its liturgy. Major composers outside its fold, such as Bach, also addressed Psalms as sacred music from artistic perspectives, as in his motets. The history of Psalm composition in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries is intertwined in general with, and in some ways tethered to, the paths of motet and anthem genres during those periods. And English anthems of the time display an abundant reliance on Psalm texts and paraphrases.
Throughout the modern era and into the 21st century, in both functional sacred and secular concert contexts, composers of virtually every stripe and orientation have engaged the Psalms in expressions ranging from large-scale works for chorus, full symphony orchestra, and soloists to a cappella choral pieces, and from vocal and instrumental chamber music to solo songs and even—albeit less frequently—to purely instrumental interpretations, such as solo organ preludes and sonatas, or Krzysztof Penderecki's Psalmus (1961), an electronic work. There is probably no stylistic approach, no technical procedure, no composition treatment, no melodic, harmonic, or contrapuntal language—in short, no aspect of Western musical development—from which the Psalms have escaped.
The unrelenting appeal of the Psalms for composers in the mainstream as well as in the avant-garde of Western music in every generation lies in their particular religious spirit and in their transcendent humanistic content. Composers are continually challenged anew by the Psalms' inherent invitation to explore new and even untried expressive possibilities. Those composers with deeply held religious convictions, Judaic or Christian, and those outside religious life alike have confronted the Psalms from strictly Judaic, Christian, spiritually Judeo-Christian, or purely Western literary and cultural perspectives. Some Psalm compositions can be neatly and even exclusively deposited into one or another of those classifications. Other defy categorization and communicate on intersecting planes. Thus, the Psalms may be understood not only as an ecumenical bridge between the two religious traditions—which is no new observation—but, in addition to their undiminished role in music for worship, as an artistic bridge between sacred and secular music in the evolving and expanding Western canon.
Neil W. Levin
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ABOUT THE COMPOSERS AND THEIR WORKS
GEORGE ROCHBERG (1918–2005), one of America's most important post-serialists who nonetheless once espoused dodecaphonic orthodoxy, is remembered now as one of the first firmly established American composers to change course midstream during the 1960s and reject both serial techniques and other presumed cerebral approaches to composition. Following his "return" to a modern version of the aesthetics of Romanticism and neo-Romanticism that had been discarded by most composers—especially within the academy—he was often quoted for his conviction that "there can be no justification for music, ultimately, if it does not convey eloquently and elegantly the passions of the human heart." By then he had come to believe that the failure of so much new music in the 20th century was owed, at least in large measure, to its shunning of dramatic and emotional expressiveness in favor of minute "abstract design for its own sake." But even as early as 1959 it would appear that he was seeking to distance himself from the scientific or mathematical connections to composition then fashionable in certain circles. "Music is not engineering," he wrote in a personal letter to a friend and colleague, "and I stick fast to my conviction that music retains a deep connection with existence as we feel rather than think it."
Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Rochberg studied piano as a child. During his teen years, his interests expanded to include jazz and composition, and after earning a degree at Montclair State Teachers College, he studied at the Mannes College of Music, in New York, where George Szell was among his teachers. In 1945, following a hiatus necessitated by his wartime service in the United States Army, he resumed studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia as a pupil of Gian Carlo Menotti and Rosario Scalero—subsequently joining its faculty—and then received a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he later served as a professor until 1983.
In the 1940s Rochberg's music was stylistically imprinted with the influence of Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Bartók. In Rome on a Fulbright scholarship in the early 1950s, through his association with the prominent Italian serial composer Luigi Dallapiccola, he became persuaded of the inevitability of twelve-tone techniques. For about a decade his music was written in that vein and largely bore the expected Schoenbergian stamp in terms of serial procedures and overall non-tonal effect. His works from that period include choral settings, chamber music, and his second symphony (1956), whose premiere by Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra scored a major success and confirmed his status as a "serious" modern composer.
Following a period of self-reflection and artistic reassessment in the mid-1960s, in the wake of a calamitous personal loss, Rochberg came to the conclusion (nearly revolutionary for a composer of his milieu) that his future work, in order to have any meaning for him, would have to look back in some ways to the historical development of music and its pre-serialist aesthetics vis-à-vis expressivity. Some of his compositions from those years are in effect layered mosaics that draw upon and quote music of other composers, interlaced with his original material and refracted through his creative lens. His chamber work Contra mortem et tempus (1965), for example, famously contains quotations from 20th-century composers Pierre Boulez, Edgard Varèse, and Charles Ives. It takes the form of motivic fragments as well as diced and spliced melodic or rhythmic bits whose transformation and reassembling constitute—together with the glue of Rochberg's own musical ideas and developmental devices—an original composition.
By the 1970s Rochberg had effectively abandoned some of the most sacred ideals of the serial procedure adherents and of their models among the Second Viennese School, declaring that those techniques and their results were "finished, hollow, meaningless" and that they made it "virtually impossible to express serenity, tranquility, grace, wit, energy …" From the 1970s on, he began to blend modernity and modernism with Romantic elements, ranging—as he freely acknowledged—from purely diatonic sources to extremely complex chromaticism, but always geared toward his goal of achieving "the survival of music through a renewal of its humanely expressive qualities."
Between 1969 and 1987 Rochberg wrote four additional symphonies. The fifth was commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the city of Chicago, and it received its premiere there by Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also, in the 1970s, having already written two string quartets during his serial period, he composed five more. Apart from his Three Psalms, set in the original Hebrew, Rochberg's Judaically related pieces include Songs of Solomon (1946); David the Psalmist, for tenor and orchestra (1954); Sacred Song of Reconciliation (Mizmor l'piyus), for bass baritone chamber orchestra (1970), commissioned for the 1970–71 concert series 'Testimonium in Jerusalem', during which time he was its composer-in-residence; and Behold, My Servant (1973), commissioned by the Jewish Theological Seminary.
George Rochberg: THREE PSALMS
Even though Rochberg later disavowed serial procedures per se and the overall pan-tonal, dodecaphonic ethos of the Schoenberg-Berg-Webern–driven orbit, he did produce many arresting works—perhaps even expressive "in spite of themselves" or despite their atonally oriented dissonance—during the period prior to his "conversion." This lends a note of credence to the view that the qualitative merits of a piece of music depend not so much upon which techniques (tonal, non-tonal, serial, electronic, or any other) are employed as organizational means to artistic ends, but on how they are used—in what spirit, and with what degree of originality, imagination, and unquantifiable creative instinct.
Rochberg's Three Psalms for mixed chorus a cappella (two of which, Psalms 23 and 150, are included on this recording) was written in 1954, when his attraction and commitment to so-called atonal music was fresh. At that time he had a particular fascination with the creative possibilities offered by hexachords and their manipulations, and he is said to have developed a special affinity with Schoenberg's contributions as a composer and as a Jew. Indeed, in Rochberg's Psalm settings here, one senses the impact of Schoenberg's aesthetics with respect to rhythmic derivations from the stresses and cadences of the biblical Hebrew and to the declamatory choral style, which also characterizes Schoenberg's choral writing in his own setting of Psalm 130 (De Profundis, or mimma'amakim, in Hebrew). But if Schoenberg's setting served in some ways as the impetus for Rochberg's piece, as he later suggested, his inspiration was also rooted in the Book of Psalms itself. Some forty-five years later, he reflected that he had been "just full of the whole idea of the Psalms, and I wanted to try different ways of expressing them." The work was not commissioned or written for any particular occasion, but was "just something I needed to do." And he chose these three Psalms, including Psalm 43—specifically dedicated to his friend, the composer Hugo Weisgall—for what he intuited as their "emotional, spiritual content."
Amid the dissonant, though still partially tonally anchored, choral textures and linear chordal structures, there are carefully conceived contrapuntal lines that can be identified and traced by the attentive listener.
The setting of the 23rd Psalm, dedicated to Rochberg's parents, reflects its pastoral serenity and its message of comfort and reliance—and, especially at the conclusion of the piece, its stalwart confidence in divine protection, almost as a victory of the spirit over fear and defeat.
The world could spare many a large book better than this sunny little Psalm [Psalm 23]. It has dried many tears and supplied the mould into which many hearts have poured their peaceful faith.
Thus did a respected English Christian Hebraist, Alexander Maclaren, once describe the 23rd Psalm. The Targum (The 1st–2nd century Aramaic translation of the Bible) projects a national parameter onto this Psalm with its reading of the phrase adonai ro'i lo eh'sar as referring to "God who fed His people in the wilderness"—a reading that is accepted in some medieval exegeses. But, as other scholars have opined, it may be more appropriate to understand this Psalm (including that phrase, which is usually now translated along the lines of "The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing") as the testimony of a personal experience of faith, rather than as an affirmation of collective reliance.
This may be the most familiar of all the Psalms to Christians and Jews alike, and to Western culture as a whole. And it is probably one of the most often quoted texts from the Psalter. Although it is popularly associated with consolation in connection with bereavement and, even in some lay assumptions, with related eschatological assurance—because of its common recitation at funerals and memorial services—it was probably not so conceived. Most commentators interpret it as an avowal of faith in earthly life: steadfastness in the face of emotional, spiritual, or physical trial, and a metaphoric vehicle for courage and confidence in divine protection as a bulwark against succumbing to fear of danger or the gloom of depression.
The shepherd image here is the personification of divine watchfulness, providence, and protection—an image that appears in many other Psalms as well and which is rooted in the Torah (Jacob's reference to "God who has been my shepherd all my life long"; Genesis 48:15) and in Prophets (Isaiah 40:11 and Micah 7:14). It is also found in postbiblical liturgy, such as in the central piyyut (liturgical poem) concerning divine judgment on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, un'tane tokef, wherein God, in this annual judgment of all humans, is likened to a shepherd who has his sheep pass one by one under his staff, a metaphor for considering the record of each person's deeds during the previous year and decreeing his destiny.
"Green pastures" (lit., pastures of tender grass) and "still waters" (lit., waters of restfulness—i.e., that are conducive to restfulness and inner peace, consistent with the overall theme, rather than the mere physical calm of the waters) connote reassurance and faith in the face of anguish, or inner peace in the face of turbulence.
The "valley of the shadow of death" should be understood not necessarily as physical death, but as the presence of real physical danger or the pain of internal struggle (in which case the operative word might be "shadow"). The divinely prepared "table" (i.e., festive enjoyment or celebration) in the midst or full view of such adversaries—internal or external—demonstrates almost defiantly that the speaker or psalmist remains divinely protected even under otherwise precarious circumstances. The oil of anointment has its historical basis in the trappings of privileged feasts in Near Eastern antiquity. And the shepherd's defensive rod, with which attackers may be driven away, and his staff, upon which he may lean for rest or ease while shepherding, are further metaphoric symbols of God's care.
The expected triumphal tone of Psalm 150, dedicated to his brother—with its resounding praise of God and its catalogue of biblical-era musical instruments once employed in ancient Jerusalem to accompany and amplify that praise—is also mirrored in Rochberg's uplifting exposition. Its rhythmic vigor, however, is interspersed and interrupted with a beautifully lyrical element, uncharacteristic of most settings of this Psalm in any era, which generally focus only on the more obvious bombastic sentiment of the text. There are even passages of great delicacy and moments of intimacy, in which the composer seems to be exploring different possible manifestations and moods of praise, while always returning to the Psalm's pervasive jubilance. The resolute open final chord hints at antiquity and appears to emphasize the historical-literary role of this Psalm in concluding the entire Book of Psalms.
Psalm 23—from Three Psalms—was given its premiere at the 20th anniversary of Lazare Saminsky's annual Three-Choir Festival at Temple Emanu-El in New York City on 20 April 1956 (the year of the work's publication). There is a precedent for a performance of Psalms 23 and 150 as a pair, without Psalm 43, which occurred at the Exposition of Contemporary Music at the University of Cincinnati in 1966. The earliest performance of the entire work also dates to 1966, when it was heard at the Philadelphia Musical Academy—now the University of the Arts.
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Throughout his musical life, JACOB DRUCKMAN (1928–1996) was considered one of the most promising and most erudite American composers of his generation. Born in Philadelphia, he studied piano and violin in his youth and also became an accomplished jazz trumpeter. He studied composition with Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood), and with Peter Menin, Bernard Wagenaar, and Vincent Persichetti at The Juilliard School—whose faculty he joined in 1956. He also held teaching positions at Brooklyn College and at Yale, where he became chairman of the composition department in 1976.
Ranging from abstract to theatrical, Druckman's music, which embraced purely instrumental, vocal, and electronic genres and expressions, is known for its dramatic sonic impact. In the 1960s his theretofore neoclassical formal tendencies (his 1950 Divertimento, for example) gave way to experimental music for combinations of instruments together with prerecorded electronic parameters and sounds. By the 1970s he was leaning as well toward rich, sometimes extravagant orchestral colors and timbres in his pieces for larger ensembles. At the same time, he was always concerned with well-calculated structure and judicious focus on detail. Indeed, he once described these two sides of his musical personality as "Apollonian and Dionysian"—sides that can sometimes be juxtaposed in a single piece. He also turned to the device of quotation from other, earlier works, which could involve music of such stylistically and chronologically disparate composers as Cavalli (1602–76), Cherubini (1760–1842), M. A. Charpentier (1643–1704), and Leonard Bernstein.
Prism (1980) was probably Druckman's most frequently heard orchestral work. Among his other important pieces are his first large-scale orchestral work, Windows (1972), for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music; Aureole (1979), commissioned by Bernstein; Valentine (1969) for solo contrabass; Antiphonies (1963); and Lamia(1974).
In 1978 Druckman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Commenting on his untimely passing, ASCAP president and chairman Marilyn Bergman observed, "American music has lost one of its leading citizens, a greatly talented man who was also an inspired teacher and a determined advocate."
Jacob Druckman: PSALM 93
Druckman's setting of Psalm 93 is excerpted here from the kabbalat shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) section of his full Sabbath Eve Service, "Shir shel yakov," which was commissioned in 1967 by Cantor David Putterman for the twenty-third annual service of new liturgical music at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. Although kabbalat shabbat is actually an independent and self-contained service that begins just prior to sundown, preceding the Sabbath eve service itself, most formal settings of the Friday evening liturgy as artistically unified conceptions treat the kabbalat shabbat texts (Psalms and Psalm verses, plus a much later kabbalistic poem, l'kha dodi) simply as the opening part of a single Sabbath service. Although Druckman's music of the late 1960s is generally marked by more advanced and experimental sonorities and more progressive compositional techniques, he reverted here—as many composers have done when addressing the liturgy for functional rendition—to a more conservative approach, to which a moderately sophisticated but nonetheless lay congregation could relate.
The employment of Psalm 93 in connection with the anticipation of the Sabbath, and as a prelude to it, may have roots in antiquity that predate the development and canonization of the established Sabbath liturgy. Rabbinical literature contains references that have been cited to suggest that the Psalm was sung every Friday in the Temple in ancient Jerusalem by the Levitical choir. (The Septuagint gives further such evidence in the form of an added superscription that refers to "the day before the Sabbath.") And a talmudic reference (R.H. 31a) appears to place the Friday recitation of Psalm 93 within the context of divine cosmological parameters as set forth in Genesis, wherein God's Creation—the creation of the universe—becomes complete with the creation and emergence of mankind on the sixth day, followed by the divinely ordained Sabbath as, among other things, a sign of completion. Thus, in Judaic theological tradition, God's ultimate sovereignty over mankind—and therefore over the course of human history and events—is firmly and eternally established by the sixth day. That supreme mastery is now added to, and fused with, God's already demonstrated sovereignty over the cosmos—over both time and nature: "The world is firmly, immutably, and long-since ['of old'] established" (v.1); "You have existed [as sovereign] from eternity—from time immemorial" (v.2).
The opening words of this Psalm constitute a resounding affirmation of divine sovereignty, illustrated poetically in terms of earthly trappings of royalty. At first glance this might seem historically obvious, even tautological, since the concept of divine sovereignty is accepted as one of the foundation stones of Judaic theology. But the actual image of God as King, and its subsequently inspired analogies to humanly conceived regalia—as depicted here (and in the other so-called Enthronement Psalms) through literary evocations of royal robes, the impregnability of fortified girding, and the monarchial throne—may be of more recent vintage in Jewish antiquity than the basic monotheistic principle itself.
The fifth and final verse of Psalm 93, which assures that God's testimonies—His law and teachings—are both true and perfect (viz., sacred) beyond all limitations of time, is interpreted as a deduced consequence of His supremacy as the eternal King. Since His omnipotence and infinite reign are acknowledged as unquestionable certainty, and since it may be assumed that this acknowledgment implies the resulting benefit to the world, His being and aura may be characterized as the essence of holiness: "Holiness is appropriate to your abode …" Thus the opening and closing verses are linked by virtue of their revelation concerning the divine nature: God's ever-enduring and exclusive cosmic supremacy, and the sanctity and perfection of His rule that follows from that truth.
The transparent energy of Druckman's interpretation, which amplifies the Psalm's focus on God's strength as the supreme power, is established by a memorable rhythmic motive that persists throughout the piece. The setting also mirrors the responsorial parallel structure of the text.
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URSULA MAMLOK (b. 1923) lived until the age of sixteen in her native Berlin, where she began composing as a child. She studied with Professor Gustav Ernest and Emily Weissgerber. In recent interviews she has recalled her family's mainstream synagogue affiliation and Jewish holy day observances, and she also remembers anti-Semitic slurs against her as a child even prior to the Nazi era. When, during the early years of the National Socialist regime, Jews were excluded from the Hausmusik programs in public schools, her father organized private musicales in their home, for which she wrote music. Following the infamous orchestrated nationwide pogrom in 1938 known as Kristallnacht, the family left Germany for Ecuador—for the American immigration quotas precluded their entry into the United States by that time (1939). But in Ecuador, feeling alienated, her parents became disaffected from Judaism and abandoned Jewish observances and celebrations altogether. "We were angry," she has recalled. "Suddenly all of our family members were in concentration camps or were being murdered, and somehow we didn't feel like celebrating anything."
Eventually, in 1940, the family was able to settle in New York, where she studied with George Szell at the Mannes School of Music for four years. In 1956 she studied composition with Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music, where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees. During that period her music tended to reflect the traditional, tonal approach of Giannini. But her subsequent studies with Roger Sessions—and additional work with such exponents of a more advanced modern musical language as Stefan Wolpe and Ralph Shapey—broadened her harmonic bases and techniques and freed her from complete reliance on conventional tonalities. "It [the music written after those exposures] is probably the same music I wrote before, only with a different technique." She also studied piano with Edward Steuermann, one of New York's leading piano pedagogues of that time, whose pupils included such major concert pianists as Lorin Hollander, Alfred Brendel, and Joseph Kalichstein.
Steuermann had a close association with Arnold Schoenberg, and this also played an influential role in Mamlok's own musical development. She agrees, however, with those who maintain that no music is technically "atonal," even if it may disregard common practice foundations. "My music is colorful, with the background of tonality—tonal centers. … I can't shake it completely."
In addition to her Cantata based on the First Psalm, her significant works are her string quartets; Panta rhei (Time in Flux), for piano trio (1981); Der Andreas Garten (1987), for flute, harp, and mezzo-soprano, to poetry by her husband, Gerard Mamlock; Grasshoppers (1956), for solo piano; Two Thousand Notes (2000), a millennium celebration; and Constellations (1993), commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony. She was honored with a festival and symposium at the Manhattan School of Music in April 2006.
Ursula Mamlok: CANTATA BASED ON THE FIRST PSALM
Psalm 1 has been viewed constructively as essentially man-centered rather than God-centered, in the sense that it provides the quintessentially Judaic path to human righteousness and thus to a good, fulfilling, and ultimately rewarding life. It contains neither the praise for God found in many other Psalms nor petitions for intervention. And there is neither the psalmist's rejoicing nor any lament over events (Psalm 137, for example). Rather, this Psalm is at its core a divine admonition to man concerning his behavior and actions and the moral and ethical values that must guide his life. The central theme is the Judaic desiderata of the centrality of the Torah—God's law and teachings—in the daily life of individual people.
It is understood in this Psalm that God is the supreme, omnipotent, and exclusive sovereign of the universe, but the emphasis is on the corollary of that truth—that His teachings are therefore true and perfect as the guide for human life, and that the worthy and truly content ones are those who adhere to them.
One might also view this Psalm as a precursor to a fundamental tenet of later rabbinic Judaism: that the very act of learning the Torah—contemplating it, discussing it, and dwelling on it continually throughout one's life—not only provides the means to knowledge and wisdom and reveals the practical formula for a righteous and fulfilled life, but also constitutes for its own sake a sacred religious obligation and experience. Such Torah study itself becomes a principal means of communication with God.
Psalm 1 articulates three levels of moral and ethical human failing:
- "Sin"—viz., simple failure to adhere to the truth of God's teachings and to put them into practice on a daily basis—whether from ignorance or from lack of character and moral strength to resist contrary impulses.
- "Wickedness," also sometimes translated as "ungodliness," which signifies the knowing, conscious, willful, and persistent violation of God's laws and commanded ways.
- "Scornfulness" or "mockery"—considered the worst of all—which applies to those who insolently and deliberately choose evil ways specifically out of scorn for the divine teachings, and who, moreover, take delight in corrupting others and leading them, too, to violate the commandments.
Thus the opening verse proclaims that he who would attain happiness in life is one who avoids ("has not walked in the path of") and disassociates from the potentially contaminating influences of the wicked, meaning those who have no fear of God and who believe that evil can be pursued with impunity in an earthly daily life from which they assume God to be distanced. And man is cautioned, too, not to expose himself to the ways of less villainous ordinary sinners (viz., the wayward—those who err by straying from God's mandated path), whose seemingly more benign course may nonetheless have attraction for the average person.
This Psalm encapsulates the theological principle that man, through his choice of behavior, retains control over his destiny to the extent that he accepts God's teachings. Some commentators have gone further to suggest a type of popular theology in the link here between faith and human progress on a collective level, based on the acknowledgment of this universal moral order. "The Psalm implicitly proclaims unquestioned faith in the power of the i
3 Psalms (more info)
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Psalm 23 - 3:42
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Psalm 150 - 5:15
Psalm 93 (more info)
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Psalm 93 - 2:02
Cantata based on the First Psalm (more info)
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Cantata based on the First Psalm - 7:38
Ma Tovu (more info)
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Ma Tovu - 2:33
Shiru Ladonai (Psalm 96) (more info)
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Shiru Ladonai (Psalm 96) - 2:38
Ma Tovu (more info)
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Ma Tovu - 2:21
Adonai Malakh (Psalm 93) (more info)
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Adonai Malakh (Psalm 93) - 1:51
The Lord is My Shepherd (more info)
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The Lord is My Shepherd - 4:06
Psalm 126 (more info)
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Psalm 126 - 3:53
Psalms and Supplications (more info)
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The 23rd Psalm of David - 2:47
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The Belly of the Whale: Jonah's Prayer - 5:52
Psalm 2 (more info)
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Prologue: Prais'd Be - 1:01
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Master of the Universe - 2:12
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Thy Covenant - 2:30
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Day of Wrath - 2:29
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Epilogue: Life and Joy - 0:34
Psalm 117 (more info)
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Psalm 117 - 2:04
Psalm 23 (more info)
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The 23rd Psalm - 1:44
Psalm 137, "Al Naharot Bavel" (more info)
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Psalm 137 (Al Naharot Bavel) - 9:56
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