The Recovering Choir Director

Many a psalm setting may be rightly criticized as overwrought or too technically demanding for certain choirs or cantors. However, that doesn’t mean that the entire setting should be jettisoned. Most have workable antiphons that are either easily learned or ingrained in the congregation’s collective memory, so they can be left alone (if the texts are suitable).

This leaves us with the verses to work with. Below are four chant-based solutions. Work is involved with text-pointing, so a poet’s ear and some time are required.

1. Point the text to a suitable Gregorian psalm tone.
2. Point the text to a modal melody adapted to the vernacular. Many examples can be found in GIA’s RitualSong and Worship hymnals.
3. Point the text to a suitable Anglican chant (if The Hymnal 1940, The Hymnal 1982 or the Anglican Chant Psalter is available). Have the choir sing the verses in unison or in parts.
4. Gelineau psalm tones can be wedded to most contemporary antiphon settings, regardless of key or mode. Translations other than the Grail can be fitted to these tones, more or less gracefully. These too can be sung either in unison or in harmony. Again, these examples can be found in the GIA hymnals listed above.

Instrumentation need not be eliminated for the verses in any of the aforementioned solutions, and can still serve to support the choir.

It may also be the case that, as a result of using one of the above solutions, the choir may worry less about getting notes right and focus more on praying the text. Freed from the worry of getting notes right, the choir may also focus their energies into improving their tonal quality. Perhaps (hopefully) the difference would be noticeable among members of the congregation as well.

For those parishes who employ permanent or seasonal worship aids that include verses to the psalms, this work would allow agreement between what the choir/cantor sings and what the congregation reads. (Until the powers-that-be come up with a new translation, that is—then it’s back to the drawing board.)

I’ll furnish this post with an example eventually. Or you could come over to my local parish where solutions 1 and 4 are used regularly (and successfully) to replace the simple Alstott tones found in Respond and Acclaim.