Chanting the Psalms
Susan Williams / Advent, 2023, Issue 9
Trinity Sunday of this year marked a new tradition for St. Benedict’s by incorporating the reciting of psalms into the Eucharist liturgy. The use of psalms in worship dates back to the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant to the Tabernacle (1 Chronicles 16:16) when David offered Psalms and music along with the established burnt offerings. Israelites sang psalms twice daily at morning and evening prayer and other special services. This tradition carried over into the New Testament church.
While reciting the psalms is highly beneficial, the scriptures indicate they were sung. The Hebrew words for ‘sing’ and ‘song’ appear more than 180 times throughout the psalms. In speaking of psalm-singing, Anglican theologian and author Terry Johnson tells us we’ll get more out of it when we use it for its intended purpose. Indeed, singing requires deep breathing, elevating oxygen levels, and sharpening our focus. Our awareness of the text is heightened, enabling us to recall it when we need the vocabulary to offer prayers or praise to God or in times of trial when we search for comfort or wisdom.
Trinity Sunday of this year marked a new tradition for St. Benedict’s by incorporating the reciting of psalms into the Eucharist liturgy. The use of psalms in worship dates back to the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant to the Tabernacle (1 Chronicles 16:16) when David offered Psalms and music along with the established burnt offerings. Israelites sang psalms twice daily at morning and evening prayer and other special services. This tradition carried over into the New Testament church.
What are some ways we can present the psalms musically? The early church used a form of responsorial chant where a cantor sang the verses, and the congregation responded with a repeated refrain. After the Reformation, aided by the advent of the printing press, congregations could participate more meaningfully and develop a greater knowledge and appreciation of the Psalms.
Some of our favorite hymns are metrical psalms originating from the Calvinist movement. While they certainly enhance our worship, it is worth considering how well they adhere to the original psalm text. They may have lost some nuance during translation from the original Hebrew, and how much more of the original intent is lost when forcing the unmetered psalm into an existing hymn tune with a predetermined number of syllables per phrase and then forcing it to rhyme?
The Anglican Church has a rich tradition of chant. Chanting offers us the flexibility of singing any psalm without alteration from any version of the Bible we choose. Anglican tradition provides several options for chanting psalms and canticles. Of these options, simplified Anglican chant is the most accessible and intuitive. It is the form we use at Evening Prayer and in time, will employ in our service of Holy Communion.
In simplified Anglican chant, the chant tone consists of four measures of music, a measure being the space between the bar lines (vertical lines). Each measure contains two chords: a reciting tone and a termination. Two verses of the psalm are chanted across the four measures, one measure for every half verse. Most of the text is chanted on the reciting tone (RT) before moving to the termination (TM) on the last accented syllable of the half verse. The psalm tone is repeated until all verses are chanted. For a psalm with an uneven number of verses, only the last two measures of the chant tone are repeated for the final verse. Each psalm will close with the Gloria Patri beginning at the first measure of the chant tone. By way of demonstration, below is one of our favorite chant tones, #749. Kennedy takes it from the first phrase of “Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness” (tune: Schmücke Dich).
“/” indicates where we change pitch for the last accented syllable of the half phrase. “*” indicates the beginning of the second half of the verse. Below are the first two verses of Psalm 50 for Advent 1 with pointing corresponding to the chant tone above:
1 THE LORD, even the Most Mighty God, hath/spoken, * and called the world, from the rising up of the sun unto the going down there- / of.
2 Out of Sion hath God ap- / peared * in perfect / beauty.
As we gradually move towards chanting the psalms, the choir will chant the odd-numbered verses, with the congregation joining in to chant the even-numbered verses, much as we have been reading them responsively. I pray this explanation has alleviated any apprehension as we progress in our interaction with Psalmody.
Susan Williams serves as choirmaster and organist at St. Benedict’s Anglican Church in Rockwall Texas.
