water psalms
Mezzo-soprano solo, SATB div., piano and organ | Duration c. 15’
Libretto after the Book of Psalms, as paraphrased by George Buchanan and Thomas LaVoy
The theme of water in the biblical Book of Psalms is complex and multi-faceted. From chapter to chapter, even at times from verse to verse, water imagery is used to allude to biblical history, to describe feelings of oppression on the part of the Psalmist, and to trace the flow of spirituality back to the source of all waters – that is, to God. This work, water psalms, is a musical exploration of the many variations on the theme of water in the Book of Psalms, commissioned by the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union to mark the 400th anniversary of the opening of Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. It is also, in many ways, a personal and spiritual reaction to the difficulties of 2020, the year in which it was composed.
George Buchanan (1506-1582), who is memorialized both in Greyfriars Kirkyard and in one of the kirk’s stained-glass windows, began paraphrasing the Book of Psalms in Latin during his time in exile at a monastery in Portugal. water psalms takes portions of these paraphrases and sets them in conjunction with English paraphrases of my own creation. The resulting libretto is a conversation over a gulf of 400 years – a poet in a time of exile communing with a people in a time of pandemic. In our current situation, it is common for each of us to feel like an exile within our own homes, trapped on these small islands and unable to communicate effectively with the outside world. Fortunately for us, there are those in our history who have written from a similar state of being.
While the Latin paraphrases in water psalms retain the more formal stylings of Buchanan’s writing, the English paraphrases are presented in a more modern form, with flowing stanzas and no capitalization. The removal of capitalization is meant to lend a child-like simplicity to the text; when the deeper machinations of this world conspire to overwhelm our understanding, the feeling can be likened to that of a child with limited knowledge of the complexities of life. So too is the individual’s relationship with God characterized in water psalms; one of child-like trust rather than true understanding.
