Psalmody in three books for voices and ensemble

Abstract

Historically, concert music based predominantly on Jewish subject matter has been found in sacred works for Christian usage. One of the first composers to address this discrepancy was the Italian Salamone Rossi (1570?-ca. 1630). He brought into being a cycle of vocal works employing the musical vocabulary of his time with the intent of introducing the pieces into a Jewish liturgical-concert setting. His settings of Psalms and other portions of the Jewish Bible were collected and published by him under the title Hashirim asher l'Sh'lomo, or The Songs of Solomon. In honor of his work, I selected seven of the Psalms he chose to set, and recast them into a decidedly modern idiom. Although his settings are for a cappella mixed chorus, I elected to employ only soloists and a small instrumental complement, in much the same way as his German contemporary, Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672), in his intimate cycle Kleine geistliche Konzerte. The final influence as to my decisions concerning the structure of the work arose from Arnold Schonberg's (1874-1951) layout of his, Pierrot Lunaire, albeit secular, which is cast into three groups of songs, each with its own particular orchestration. My composition is divided into three books: the first contains four Psalm settings for tenor and bass, with violin, viola and piano; the second contains two settings for soprano and alto, with violoncello, string bass and piano; and the third is a single setting for the entire ensemble. The first two books also contain interludes between the vocal movements to provide both variety for the listener and rest for the singers. My materials are derivative of my own personal approach to dealing with free chromaticism and do not draw substantially on any inherent liturgical practices. The text is in Hebrew with the standard transliterations.