Musings on Classical Music 2

This second isntallment in the Musing on Classical Music series on classical music created for worship and liturgy.  I have recently been reimmersing myself into classical music since my high school band days and have been enjoying myself.  As a percussionist by trade, music buffs are naturally skeptical of my musical tastes and I am perfectly fine with that—these are musings from a listener, no more.

This installment features a running diary of my listen to Psalms of Joy and Sorrow, a collection of psalms from various composers.  Most of the composers are Jewish, and even some are women, which adds to the core of this collection: it is modern music in the sense that it is made up of the plurality of modernity as well as modern musicality; this is something I feel benefits the treatment of the Scripture itself, that in this time in history composers are able to return to Scripture and translate the emotion and feeling of the Hebrew into a tangible, aural reality today.

George Rochberg
Psalms 23 and 150

Psalm 23 is good, but Psalm 150 is amazing.  The repeating of "Hallelujah" by the chorus steadily builds into a crescendo of worship and adoration.

Jacob Druckman
Psalm 93

Druckman’s psalm is much more macabre and sorrowful.  The yearning of the male voice in front of the chorus is reserved yet solid, walking the fine line, as the psalmists do, between sadness and whining.

Ursula Mamlok
Cantata based on Psalm 1

I realized this might be the first woman composer I have heard, ever.  There are plenty of women in orchestras and symphonies, but where are the women conductors and composers? 

As for the piece, the female lead is a nice break from the male leads thus far.  There is a very nice counterpoint.

Yehudi Wyner
"Ma Tovu" and Psalm 96

I had to look up Ma Tovu on Wikipedia, and it is a traditional Jewish prayer for "How Goodly!"  Psalm 96 was by far the Wyner piece to say "Ma Tovu" over, instead of the former one that was not as dynamic.

Miriam Gideon
"Ma Tovu" and Psalm 93

No offense to Ms. Gideon, but her pieces sound the same as the others, which isn’t a bad thing, becuase if her pieces had come first then she would have received some more introspection.

Martin Kalmanoff
Psalm 23

Has a whimsical quality to it, with an ending crescendo and lingering notes like a Rogers & Hammerstein tune.

Philip Glass
Psalm 126

In typical Glass style, this piece is as minimalist as possible, with the music melting away for a narrator to speak and then filling in the ending with flurishes of woodblocks and subdued instrumentation.

Donald Waxman
Psalm 23 and Jonah’s Prayer from The Belly of the Whale

Jonah opera style—cool.

Ralph Shapey
Psalm 2

An interesting, operatic take on Psalm 2 with the psalm broken into five sections.

Robert Strassburg
Psalm 117

This are beginning to blend together.  I think it is hard to express joy for a lot of these composers, there is calculated joy and real joy, and these pieces calculate joy on paper but don’t make me rise out of my seat.

Heinrich Schalit
Psalm 23

By far the most contemplative of the Psalm 23 pieces.

Zavel Zilberts
Psalm 137

A very meditative peace that stirs the heart to wonder at the mixture of unrequited joy and exilic sorrow witnessed to in Psalm 137.  However, the picture of "bashing infants upon rocks" is not quite captured in the music for me. 

Overall, I was suprised at the way that the emotions of the psalms are captured in modern musical constructs.  As a percussionist, I was inspired by the use of woodblocks in Glass’s piece, but if I had to pick one as a favorite track it would be Shapey’s Psalm 2.