The Lord reigneth, he is closed in majesty.
The Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith He hath girded Himself,
The world is also established, that it cannot be moved.
Thy throne is established of old, Thou art from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice,
The floods lift up their waves.
The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters,
Yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
Holiness becomes Thine house, O Lord, forever.
God be merciful and bless us, and cause Thy face to shine upon us,
That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations.
Let the people praise Thee, O God, let all the people praise Thee.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shall judge the people righteously,
And govern the nations upon the earth.
Let the people praise Thee, O God, let all the people praise Thee.
The earth hath yielded her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us,
And all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in peace together in unity.
It is like the precious ointment that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard,
That ran down over the hem of his garments,
As the dew of Hermon, that descended upon the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the lord with gladness.
Come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord He is God, it is He that hath made us, and we belong unto Him.
We are His people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.
Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations.
PDF: Four_Psalms_of_Joy-sample.pdf
This set began in the late 1970s when I was studying theory and composition at Catholic U. of America. CUA was the only school in the D.C. area offering such instruction in the evening. It was in my fourth and final semester that I set to music Psalm 133 as a class project.
Kerry Krebill, my friend and Oratorio Society of Washington fellow singer, was then nearing completion of her Master of Music degree in conducting. She directed Musikanten, a chamber chorus of which I was a founding member. Kerry included Psalm 133 in her Master’s recital, performed by Musikanten. Over the years I added the other three movements.
The composition gathered dust until the late 2000s, when the Mishkan Torah (my synagogue in Greenbelt, Md.) choir performed Psalm 100 at a couple of the choir’s annual concerts and recorded it for the choir’s CD, all under the direction of Rebecca Silverstein.
It continues to gather dust.
Psalm 93 begins grandly, in a 9/4 meter alternating with 6/4, following the text. The meter becomes 4/4 at “the world also is established” and remains there. But the contemplative mood is interrupted by the metaphor of the flood and the “noise of many waters” climaxing in a fortissimo chord — F♯, B, D♯, C♯ — before calming down. The coda on “Holiness becomes Thine house” introduces a V-IV-V progression motif that recurs twice more in succeeding movements. The movement, nominally in A major, somehow winds up on a B major chord.
Psalm 67 starts out quietly, as befits the text. The nominal key is E minor, but several progressions later arrives at G major. “Let the people praise Thee” employs the motif mentioned above, followed by replies from divisi tenors and basses, then divisi sopranos and altos. Another iteration of “Let the people praise Thee” leads to a brief fugato cadencing to G♯ minor and another alteration of divisi. The movement ends tamely enough in E major.
Psalm 133:1 is well known to Jewish congregations, but I was unfamiliar with verses 2 and 3 until I chose the psalm for my theory project. I was struck by the congruence between the downward flow of the ointment and of the dew, and the descending motif of the synagogue melody, which appears as B-E-D-C♯-B in my version. The meter is 4/4, but I had to insert a few 2/4 bars to keep the text moving.
Psalm 100’s familiarity is perhaps exceeded only by that of Psalm 23, and it has probably been set to music by hundreds, maybe thousands, of composers, perhaps most notably Leonard Bernstein. I used motifs from the first three movements in order to bring the work together. The key is E Major, though the piece ventures as far afield as G Minor, and the meter is 6/8 with a middle section in 2/4, again dictated by the text. There are occasional divisi in each part but never more than five parts until the final E Major cadence.