Welcome to Psaltery and Harp!
I'm really excited to be launching my new shop. Over the next few weeks I will be starting to add sheet music for my translations and settings of the psalms set in the Church of England's Common Worship lectionary.
Over the last few years, I have developed a style of responsorial psalm with verses that are easy for a solo cantor to sing and refrains that are easy for the congregation to join in with. This style has been road-tested in my own church and by novice soloists, some of whom have been very nervous!
The verses are set to chants loosely based on the Sarum psalm tones used at Salisbury Cathedral before the reformation, which means they mostly move by step. The short congregational refrains are within a limited range comfortable for most voices. The voice parts are in unison and harmonic interest is in the organ accompaniments, which are often modal, and are designed to be playable on a small one-manual instrument with pedal board – because that's all we have in our church!
For a long time, I used the Common Worship psalm texts (under the 'local use' copyright provision), but we found many of them difficult to sing as there are a lot of words in some verses. It can also be hard to understand some of the references and idioms, especially when the text is divided into sections with a refrain between each. So I decided to start doing my own translations of the psalm texts.
I have to admit here that while I am a professional translator, Hebrew is not one of my languages but I do have a little New Testament Greek. These translations are prepared with reference to the Greek translation of the Septuagint and making extensive use of interlinear texts and lexicons. Fortunately, there are already many translations into languages I do read that I can check my work against!
In preparing my final English text, I have aimed for a text that:
- flows naturally in English so it is easy to understand and makes sense when divided into stanzas,
- uses clear and evocative vocabulary and inclusive language, and
- is easy to sing.
If you already use responsorial psalms in your services, I hope you will find these settings useful. And if you don't yet, I hope they will inspire you to introduce them to your congregation so that they can enjoy the riches of these texts that have inspired worship for millennia.