{"id":65419,"date":"2024-10-28T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T20:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=65419"},"modified":"2024-10-30T14:40:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T19:40:01","slug":"retrospectives-on-composing-for-the-churchs-worship-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/28\/retrospectives-on-composing-for-the-churchs-worship-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrospectives on Composing for the Church\u2019s Worship, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post continues the\u00a0<\/em>Obsculta\u00a0Preaching Series, sponsored by the\u00a0<\/em>Obsculta\u00a0Preaching Initiative at Saint John\u2019s School of Theology and Seminary. In these posts, our authors engage a variety of ways in which scripture, preaching, and liturgical worship interact with the life of the faithful.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1998, GIA Publications, Inc., published my third attempt at setting Psalm 23 for liturgical use as part of the recorded As The Deer<\/em> collection. I had already been introduced to the poetry of Fr. Francis Patrick Sullivan, SJ, through his 1974 volume Table Talk with the Recent God<\/em>, so I was very excited to explore his Lyric Psalms: Half a Psalter<\/em> (1983). (As a side note, I have learned that Fr. Sullivan served as a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy from 1982-1988. I wonder if he was a contributor to ICEL\u2019s magnificent Consultation on a Liturgical Psalter (1983), whose \u201cBrief on the Liturgical Psalter\u201d and \u201cThe Psalm Texts with Critical Notes\u201d still represent to me a pinnacle in inviting scripture scholars, poets, and composers to collaborate on sung texts for liturgical worship.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal<\/em> #61 states that \u201c[i]t is preferable for the Responsorial Psalm to be sung\u2026. Hence the psalmist, or cantor of the Psalm, sings the Psalm verses, while the whole congregation sits and listens, normally taking part by means of the response, except when the psalm is sung straight through [emphasis added], that is, without a response.\u201d While I assumed that the in directum method of singing the psalm text primarily referred to using a Latin-language Gradual from the \u201cGraduale Romanum\u201d or \u201cGraduale Simplex,\u201d it opened up to me another compositional avenue for creating a setting of the Responsorial Psalm as an art song. The combination of this directive along with my appreciative response to Fr. Sullivan\u2019s paraphrase of Psalm 23 led me to create a setting for solo voice without congregational sung interventions. Employing oboe, flute and harp as instrumental accompaniment, the setting tries to mirror the irregular prosodic structure of the poet\u2019s paraphrase in a lyric style, probably influenced by Ralph Vaughn Williams or Benjamin Britten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A performance of this setting of the Shepherd Psalm appears at: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xGWs1f_Wzpk<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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