table 1
Masoretic, Protestant
Septuagint, Vulgate,
Roman Catholic
1–8
1–8
9–10
9
11–113
10–112
114–15
113
116 vv. 1–9
114
116 vv. 10–19
115
117–46
116–45
147 vv. 1–11
146
147 vv. 12–29
147
148–50
148–50
(Lat. psalmus; Gk. psalmos).
An ancient Near Eastern or ancient Egyptian sacred poem exhibiting the following main characteristics: a theocentric subject, short bifurcated units of literary construction, and parallelism of clauses (parallelismus membrorum, ‘thought rhyme’); or a setting of such a poem to music. The Greek word itself, used in the Septuagint for the book of Psalms, and in the New Testament, referred properly to a song with plucked string accompaniment (elsewhere in antiquity it referred also to the movement of the fingers in plucking strings, or to the sound of string instruments). In later usage, the word referred loosely to a metrical or non-metrical sacred poem or song.
This article discusses the music associated with the biblical Psalms and other psalmodic texts such as the biblical canticles, in ancient Judaism, early Christianity and the traditions springing from Eastern and Western Christianity. No detailed account is given here of the various independent musical forms of the Christian liturgy that originated ultimately in psalmody, even though these often retained psalmodic texts; for these see Antiphon; Communion; Gradual (i); Introit (i); Offertory etc. For metrical psalm settings, see Psalms, metrical.
On psalmody in the Jewish Synagogue, see Jewish music, §III, 2(i).
I. Biblical and early Christian period
JOHN ARTHUR SMITH (I), TERENCE BAILEY (II), CHRISTIAN TROELSGÅRD (III), PAUL DOE/ALEJANDRO E. PLANCHART (IV, 1), MALCOLM BOYD/ALEJANDRO E. PLANCHART (IV, 2)
2. The book of ‘Psalms’: general musical aspects.
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
The most significant collection of psalms as sacred poetry (see initial definition above) is that of the 150 items comprising the Sefer tehillim (‘Book of Praises’; in normal English usage, ‘book of Psalms’ or ‘Psalter’) in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) of the Jews. The Sefer tehillim belongs to the Ketuvim (‘Writings’), the last of three sub-divisions within the Jewish scriptures of which the others are Torah (‘Law’) and Nevi‘im (‘Prophets’). The standard printed text of the Hebrew scriptures follows the Masoretic Text – that agreed and codified by the Jewish Masoretes in the early Middle Ages.
The Hebrew Jewish Scriptures were early translated into Greek, the Law perhaps as early as the mid-3rd century bce. By about 130 bce the ‘law, the prophets and the other books of our [i.e. the Jews’] fathers’ were known in Greek (Sirach, ‘Prologue’); it is generally assumed that the ‘other books of our fathers’ included the Ketuvim. Probably by the turn of the era the material constituting what in Christendom came to be known as the Apocrypha and the Deuterocanonical Books had been added. The Greek translation is known collectively as the Septuagint; it is the version of the Jewish scriptures with which Hellenized Jews and Greek-speaking early Christians were most familiar. Septuagint Psalms is the basis of the book of Psalms in the Vulgate, Jerome’s Latin version of the Bible.
Psalm-numbering conventions are different in printed editions of the Septuagint compared with printed editions of the Masoretic Text. The ‘Masoretic Text’ convention is followed in the King James Version (1611) and all post-Reformation Protestant bibles; the ‘Septuagint’ convention is followed in the Vulgate, the English versions of Wycliffe and Coverdale, and most Roman Catholic translations based on the Vulgate, although some recent Roman Catholic translations follow the ‘Masoretic Text’ convention. The Septuagint Psalter contains 151 psalms, but Psalm cli is designated extra-canonical. The concordances are given in Table 1.
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table 1 |
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Masoretic, Protestant |
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Septuagint, Vulgate, |
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Roman Catholic |
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1–8 |
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1–8 |
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9–10 |
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9 |
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11–113 |
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10–112 |
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114–15 |
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113 |
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116 vv. 1–9 |
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114 |
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116 vv. 10–19 |
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115 |
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117–46 |
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116–45 |
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147 vv. 1–11 |
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146 |
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147 vv. 12–29 |
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147 |
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148–50 |
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148–50 |
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Superscriptions (or ‘headings’, sometimes erroneously called ‘titles’), containing musical, historical or liturgical notes, precede 113 psalms. They are regarded by some as late additions and are therefore omitted in certain modern translations (e.g. the New English Bible). Superscriptions are not part of the psalm texts, hence English versions ignore them in verse-numbering, unlike the printed editions of the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Vulgate. (See Biblical instruments, §3(xv).)
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
The psalms were intended for singing with instrumental accompaniment. In two of the earliest complete manuscripts of the Septuagint, the Codex Vaticanus (4th century) and the Codex Alexandrinus (4th–6th centuries), the book of Psalms is entitled, respectively, ‘Psalmoi’, that is, ‘songs sung to [the accompaniment of] plucked string instruments’ and ‘Psaltērion’, that is, ‘[to or for] plucked strings’. Psalms is rich throughout in references to song, singing, musical instruments (string, wind and percussion) and the playing of instruments in conjunction with song. The Hebrew term ‘mizmor’ (Septuagint: ‘psalmos’) in the superscriptions of 57 psalms may be a generic term for instrumentally accompanied song. The superscriptions of 19 psalms contain expressions thought to be the names of tunes or modes to which they were sung (see Biblical instruments, §3(xv); see also Wulstan; Bayer; Smith, 1990 and 1994).
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
The three successive Temples in Jerusalem (First Temple: built by Solomon, d 922, and destroyed 586 bce; Second Temple: 516/515–20/19 bce; Herod’s Temple: 20/19 bce–70 ce) were the centre of ancient Jewish worship. Psalms of the Psalter, many of which had cultic significance for ancient Judaism, were ritually important. In accordance with ancient Davidic tradition, they were performed by Levites (hereditary male Temple functionaries and musicians) who sang as a choir and played instruments (Smith, 1990, p.167). Sources specify that the Levites sang Psalms xxiv, xlviii, lxxxii, xciv, lxxxi, xciii and xcii as daily Proper psalms, one for each day of the week, at the daily sacrifices (Mishnah, Tamid vii.4; Babylonian Talmud, Rosh ha-shanah 31a); Psalms cxiii–cxviii (the hallel) at the feast of Passover Pesah, during the sacrifice of the lambs (Mishnah, Pesahim v.7); and Psalm xxx during the presentation of first-fruits (Mishnah, Bikurim iii.4; the superscription to this psalm in the Masoretic Text and Septuagint allocates it, however, to the dedication of the Temple – cf Septuagint 2 Maccabees x.7). The allocation of Psalms xxiv, xlviii and xcii–xciv to their respective weekdays is confirmed in the superscriptions to their Septuagint equivalents; the allocation of Psalm xcii to the Sabbath receives additional confirmation in its superscription in the Masoretic Text. In practice the Levites may have sung many more psalms than the 14 listed here; it has been estimated that between 109 and 126 psalms belonged to the levitical repertory (Smith, 1990).
Among psalmodic material from elsewhere in the Old Testament, the Song of the Sea (Exodus xv.1–18) and the Song of the Well (Numbers xxi.17–18) were sung by the Levites at the afternoon sacrifice on the Sabbath (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh ha-shanah 31a). In addition, David’s lament (2 Samuel i.19–27), Ezekiel’s lament (Ezekiel xix.2–14) and Habakkuk’s prayer (Habakkuk iii.2–19) exhibit features that argue strongly for levitical liturgical use in the Temple (Smith, 1990, pp.181–3; 1998).
Processions and other extra-liturgical events took place on occasion. These were conducted with the playing of musical instruments, including the playing of timbrels (tof, small hand-held frame drums) by females, dancing and singing (1 Chronicles xv.29; Psalm cxlix.3; Psalm cl.4; Jeremiah xxxi.4–6; see Smith, 1990, p.167). References to such events in Psalms xlii, xlviii, lxviii, cxviii, cxlix and cl suggest that psalms were employed. Psalmodic material from outside the Psalter that may also have been employed includes Miriam’s Song (Exodus xv.21) and Judith’s Song (Apocrypha, Judith xvi.2–17; see Smith, 1990, pp.181–4; 1998).
The superscriptions of Psalms cxx–cxxxiv consist of or include the phrase ‘a song of ascents’ (‘shir ha-ma‘alot’; Psalm cxxi: ‘shir la-ma‘alot’). The Septuagint and Vulgate equivalent is ‘a song of the steps’ (Septuagint: ‘ōdē tōn anabathmōn’; Vulgate: ‘canticum graduum’). This may be a reference to the flight of 15 steps that connected the Court of Women with the Court of Israelites in the Temple, upon which the Levites would stand and sing and play during the Feast of Tabernacles (Mishnah, Sukah v.4, Middot ii.5). These 15 psalms probably constituted the levitical singing on the steps (Smith, 1990, pp.174–5).
At public celebrations of their release from captivity Jews sang the ‘song of their fathers’ (ōdēn patrion: 3 Maccabees vi.32). Domestically they sang the hallel (Psalms cxiii–cxviii) during the Passover meal (Mishnah, Pesahim ix.3), and in devout households a father might sing psalms to his children (4 Maccabees xviii.15). Corporate worship in the Jewish religious community of the Therapeutae included the singing of a ‘hymn’, either a new composition or one by ‘poets of an earlier day’, and also the ‘lyrics of the procession [prosōdia]’ (Philo of Alexandria, d c54 ce, De vita contemplativa x.80 and xi.83–9), which may be references to psalms.
The Synagogue, before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 ce and for several decades afterwards, had no formalized liturgy or ‘worship service’ in the modern sense. Psalms were read for private prayer, or as scripture for exigetical purposes. By the turn of the 2nd century ce festal recitation of the hallel may have become customary, but the use of psalms as a discrete liturgical element is not evident until some centuries later. The earliest unequivocal evidence for the use of a psalm in the Synagogue comes from c130 ce (Mishnah, Ta‘anit iii.9; see Smith, 1984, pp.4–5). In antiquity, psalms were probably read with simple recitation formulae; singing in the Synagogue is not evinced before the 4th century ce (McKinnon, 1979–80; Smith, 1984; McKinnon, 1986; Sanders, 198–208; Smith, 1994, pp.2–3).
Ancient Judaism knew at least three other groups or collections of psalmodic material. Five Apocryphal psalms (Psalms cli–clv) are extant, dating from the 3rd century bce to the early 1st century ce (Charlesworth, ii, 609–24). The Dead Sea Scroll 1QH preserves approximately 25 Thanksgiving Hymns (hodayot) of the Qumran community, dating probably from the 1st century bce (Vermes, 189–236). The Psalms of Solomon are 18 pseudepigraphs from the 1st century bce (Rahlfs, ii, 471–89; Charlesworth, ii, 639–70; Smith, 1990, p.185). This material had only limited circulation; there is little likelihood that it was used in the Synagogue or the Temple.
See also Jewish music, §II.
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
Christianity grew initially from within Judaism, sharing the latter’s culture and scriptures. The New Testament contains frequent allusions to and quotations from Septuagint Psalms as well as references to the book of Psalms as a collection (e.g. Luke xx.42 and xxiv.44; Acts i.20; Colossians iii.16; see Smith, 1995).
Until the late 2nd century psalms seem to have been used primarily as sources of apologetic and homiletic proof-texts; it is uncertain whether they were used discretely in worship (McKinnon, 1990; Gélineau, 2/1992). Unqualified occurrences of the term ‘psalmos’ cannot be relied upon to mean a psalm (Smith, 1994). The earliest unequivocal evidence appears in the apocryphal Acts of Paul ix (late 2nd century): ‘each one took of the bread and feasted according to custom amid the singing of psalms of David and of hymns’ (Schneemelcher, ii, 258). From the mid-3rd century the desert monks in Egypt recited Psalms in course as their principal religious exercise (McKinnon, 1994).
Much of the religious poetry composed by early Christians depends on Jewish models. Some is psalmodic in style. There are examples in the New Testament (e.g. Magnificat, Benedictus, Nunc dimittis), in gnostic and apocryphal literature (e.g. Hymn of Jesus in the Acts of John, xciv–xcvii; see McKinnon, 1987, §38) and preserved in manuscripts of the Septuagint (e.g. Gloria in excelsis expanded from Luke ii.14; Odes of Solomon; see Charlesworth, ii, 725–71). The use of privately composed psalms (idiōtikoi psalmoi; psalmi idiotici) in church was censured in the late 4th century by the Council of Laodicea (McKinnon, 1987, §261).
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
The levitical Temple repertory was sung to the probably heterophonic accompaniment of instruments (see 3(i) above). The rubric ‘selah’ (Septuagint: ‘diapsalma’), found in 39 psalms, possibly signified a break in the singing for prostrations (Smith, 1990, pp.173–4).
The forms of the singing were solo, choral and responsorial. Passages in Old Testament Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah show that the levitical choir sometimes had a director who also led the singing. The Mishnah contains descriptions of the levitical choir; it also mentions Hugras ben Levi who was in charge of the levitical song and a noted solo singer (Mishnah Sheqalim v.1, Yoma iii.11). Several psalms have refrains or are prefaced by the word ‘halleluyah’ that was used as a refrain; these features probably reflect responsorial performance. Similar forms of singing obtained away from the Temple, but without instrumental accompaniment. Released Jewish captives (see 3(iii) above) formed ‘choral groups’ for their singing (3 Maccabees vi.32, 35); a father sang psalms for his children (4 Maccabees xviii.15); at the domestic Passover meal the hallel was sung responsorially (Mishnah Pesahim x.4, 7); and there was solo, responsorial and choral song among the Therapeutae (Philo, De vita contemplativa x.80 and xi.83–9; see Smith, 1984).
In early Christianity, individual, corporate and responsorial unaccompanied singing is evinced inside and outside the New Testament (e.g. see Smith, 1984, pp.13–15). There is no clear evidence that the New Testament psalmodic material itself (see 4(ii) above) was sung. Three of the Odes of Solomon contain direct references to solo and corporate song (Smith, 1994, pp.13–14). The Hymn of Jesus was sung responsorially.
The earliest reference to psalm singing occurs in the late 2nd century in the Acts of Paul (see 4(i) above); the earliest references to solo, responsorial and choral psalmody occur at the turn of the 3rd century in the works of Tertullian (e.g. Apologeticum xxxix.16–18; De oratione XXV ii; Ad uxorem II, viii.8–9; see McKinnon, 1987, §§74, 78, 80) and Hippolytus (e.g. Apostolic Tradition xxv; see McKinnon, 1987, §89). From this time onwards, and especially after Constantine’s ‘edict of toleration’ of 313 ce, references become more frequent.
See also Christian Church, music of the early, §I.
Psalm, §I: Biblical and early Christian period
R. Lowth: De sacra poësi Hebraeorum praelectiones academicae Oxonii habitae (Oxford, 1753) [identification of the parallelismus membrorum]
W. Schneemelcher, ed.: Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (Tübingen, 1904, 6/1990; Eng. trans. of 6th edn., 1991–2)
A. Rahlfs, ed.: Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart, 1935) [edn of Gk. Old Testament]
S. Mowinckel: Offersang og sangoffer (Oslo, 1951; Eng. trans., rev., 1962, as The Psalms in Israel's Worship)
G. Delling: Gottesdienst im neuen Testament (Göttingen, 1952; Eng. trans., rev., 1963)
G. Vermes: The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Harmondsworth, 1964, 4/1995)
A. Sendrey: Music in Ancient Israel, (New York, 1969)
N.M. Sarna: ‘Psalms, Book of’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
D. Wulstan: ‘The Origin of the Modes’, Studies in Eastern Chant, ii, ed. M. Velimirović (London, 1971), 5–20
J. Gélineau: ‘Music and Singing in the Liturgy’, The Study of Liturgy, ed. C. Jones and others (London, 1978, 2/1992), 493–502
J.W. McKinnon: ‘The Exclusion of Musical Instruments from the Ancient Synagogue’, PRMA, cvi (1979–80), 77–87
D. Bourguet: ‘La structure des titres des psaumes’, Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses, lxi/2 (1981), 109–24
B. Bayer: ‘The Titles of the Psalms’, Yuval, no.4 (1982), 29–123 [incl. analytical tables]
J.H. Charlesworth, ed.: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (London, 1983–5)
J.A. Smith: ‘The Ancient Synagogue: the Early Church and Singing’, ML, lxv (1984), 1–16
G.H. Wilson: ‘The Use of “Untitled” Psalms in the Hebrew Psalter’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xcvii (1985), 404–13
J.W. McKinnon: ‘On the Question of Psalmody in the Ancient Synagogue’, EMH, vi (1986), 159–91
J. McKinnon: Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 1987)
J.A. Smith: ‘Which Psalms Were Sung in the Temple?’, ML, lxxi (1990), 167–86
J. McKinnon: ‘Christian Antiquity’, Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Basingstoke and London, 1990), 68–87
J. McKinnon: ‘Early Western Civilisation’, ibid., 1–44
E.P. Sanders: Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63bce–66ce (London and Philadelphia, 1992)
S.E. Gillingham: The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 1994)
J.W. McKinnon: ‘Desert Monasticism and the Later Fourth-Century Psalmodic Movement’, ML, lxxv (1994), 505–21
J.A. Smith: ‘First-Century Christian Singing and its Relationship to Contemporary Jewish Religious Song’, ML, lxxv (1994), 1–15
J.A. Smith: ‘Concordances for Singing-Terms Common to the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament’, RMARC, no.28 (1995), 1–19
J.A. Smith: ‘Musical Aspects of Old Testament Canticles in their Biblical Setting’, EMH, xvii (1998), 221–64
2. The nature of early psalmody.
3. Changes in performing practice.
4. Responsorial and antiphonal psalmody.
5. The development of recitation formulae.
6. The connection between psalm tone and mode.
7. The simple psalm tones of antiphonal psalmody.
11. The psalmody of the responsories of the Mass and Office.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the psalms in Christian religious life in the 4th century, after Constantine’s ‘edicts of toleration’. About earlier practices, however, very little is known, and opinion is divided about the role of the psalms in the liturgy. Some (Gélineau, 2/1992) would go so far as to say that there is no reason to believe the early Christians sang psalms in their worship after they ceased to attend the Synagogue (which itself had no formal liturgy or ritualized use of psalmody at this time, and singing in Synagogue services is not attested before the 4th century – see Psalm, §I, 3(iii) and Early christian church, music of the, §I). That psalms were sung in the liturgy of the 3rd-century Church, especially at Mass and in the evening Office (Vespers), is documented by several authors, and it would be hard to believe that the importance of the Psalter in the later liturgy is a departure from tradition. Christians continued to select psalms for their suitability in the liturgy, for instance, Psalm cxl (Greek and Latin numbering) at Vespers (‘Lord, I cry unto thee … Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice’), but they went much further and developed Offices that can fairly be described as services of psalms. The Christian innovation was to sing all 150, in the order of the Psalter, in a regular cycle, most commonly in the course of a week, although shorter and longer periods were also prescribed. This sequential series seems to have begun as a monastic practice, but the ferial psalms (as they came to be called) were added to the ‘cathedral’ (episcopal) liturgy in some centres of the Greek and Latin Church before the end of the 4th century and later became universal (see Psalter, liturgical). The monastic and cathedral Offices, which by the 6th century numbered seven or eight (see Divine Office), came to be considered the principal duty of monks and nuns, occupying more and more of their time – by the 11th century as much as eight hours or more a day. These Offices, even after all the additions made in the Middle Ages, remained predominantly psalmodic.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
The Psalter is a collection of lyric poetry (the Greek term ‘psalmos’ connotes a plucked string accompaniment), and although in Byzantine monastic practice the ferial cycle could be simply recited, in the Latin Church the psalms were always sung, if only to a simple formula. The musical style varied widely, generally according to the manner and occasion of execution. In the early centuries, the psalm verses were normally chanted by a soloist, usually with refrains interpolated by the assembly, although direct psalmody (without congregational response) also had a place in the liturgy.
The formulae employed by the soloist might be simple or complex, but it may be assumed that refrains intended for an untrained congregation were uncomplicated. By the 9th century, the time of the oldest liturgical books containing musical notation, the congregation had ceased to take part in liturgical psalmody, and some of the refrains were very elaborate. Whether these were originally simpler, or whether those found in the chant books have replaced earlier congregational refrains, is a question that remains unanswered. It is similarly impossible to say whether the simple psalm tones associated with choral psalmody in books of the 9th century and later are ancient, but it may be taken for granted that the structural components (introductory figure, recitation and cadence) were those employed, if sometimes more elaborately, by the solo psalm singers of earlier times. These elements are nearly universal features in the public recitation of long texts; the little evidence there is suggests that figures similar to those used in Christian liturgical psalmody were employed in the psalmody of the Jews before the Diaspora.
The earliest refrains documented in Christian worship were the single words ‘Alleluia’ or ‘Amen’ – these being frequently specified in the psalms themselves. The Hebrews also employed longer texts (e.g. ‘For his mercy endureth forever’ in Psalm cxxxv); and Christian authors of the 4th and 5th centuries, among them St Ambrose and St Augustine, recorded similar congregational refrains consisting of several words or even whole verses, always taken from the psalm with which they were sung. It has been suggested that some, at least, of the refrain melodies found in medieval books are elaborations of the ancient formulae used by the soloist in chanting the psalm verses. The chief support for this hypothesis is found in the passages of recitation on one note that frequently occur in antiphons and responsories. But such passages can also be explained otherwise, for example, as accommodating extra syllables when adapting standard melodies.
In the Middle Ages the refrains of antiphonal psalmody were normally sung twice: once before the chanting of the verses, and again at the end after the obligatory Doxology (the Gloria patri). But this was not the only usage. In the early centuries (though perhaps not in the extensive ferial psalmody) refrains were sung after each verse; and later practice included many exceptions, either solemn elaborations or further abbreviations: for example, the antiphon might be sung twice or more at the beginning; or the repetition at the close might be restricted to the second half of the refrain (as was customary in the case of the responsories). Even in modern times, the refrain of the invitatory psalm was sung twice at the start, once (in part, at least) after each verse, and twice after the concluding doxology. (For a fuller history of the refrains and the details of their performing practice, see Alleluia; Antiphon; Invitatory; Offertory; and Responsory.)
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
The passing of the refrain from congregation to choir was not the only change between ancient and medieval psalmody; the manner of chanting the body of the psalm was also altered. As early as the 7th century, and more widely in the wake of the Carolingian conquests, the role of the solo singer was greatly reduced. After the 9th century, the normal execution of extensive psalmody was choral, the verses being chanted antiphonally, that is, alternately by two separate bodies of singers. Even the complex responsory verses came to be executed chorally, after an intermediate stage when a small number of singers, probably the ‘choir leaders’ (regimini chori), sang together. Isidore of Seville makes it clear that in 7th-century Spain the responsory verses were normally chanted by soloists, but he also noted that sometimes as many as four singers were involved. Even two centuries later, execution by a soloist or soloists seems to have been the normal practice in Frankish regions: in the earliest chant books, the indications of subtle performance nuances with which the neumes for the responsory verses are generously marked can hardly have been intended for the larger chorus. Since the refrains, too, have such markings, and taking into account their melodic complexity and wide tonal ambitus, it is possible that in early Gregorian practice (disseminated from the Frankish court) these refrains were also sung by the cantors. From the 12th century, however, soloists were normally restricted to the singing of incipits; the remainder of even the most complex chants was performed by the chorus. It was only in this late period that ecclesiastic monody took on the slow, deliberate, rhythmically undifferentiated character of ‘plainchant’.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
Writers since Isidore have divided liturgical psalmody into two general classes, antiphonal and responsorial, usually saying that the distinction depends on the way the verses were executed: in responsorial psalmody, by one singer; in antiphonal, by a chorus. This definition is obviously not satisfactory for the later Middle Ages (when verses and refrain were both sung by the chorus), nor does it hold for the early period when the verses of ‘antiphonal’ psalmody were executed by a soloist. Several explanations can be offered for the words that correspond to ‘antiphon’, ‘antiphonal’, ‘responsory’ and ‘responsorial’ in early texts. The usage varied and changed over the centuries, and (for us) is often confusing, especially since responsorium (responsum etc.) and antiphona, whatever else these words came to signify, are primarily the Latin and Greek terms for ‘refrain’, and might be used interchangeably. The original difference between responsorial and antiphonal psalmody may have been more functional than stylistic: the former applying to the psalms the Church insisted must separate the items in a series of scriptural lessons, the latter to psalms that were considered scriptural readings in their own right. In any case, the elaborate style characteristic of responsorial psalmody in medieval books may be a later development, after the intercalations were shortened, usually to a refrain and a single verse. Similarly, the stark simplicity of the antiphonal recitation tones may date only from the time the solo psalm singer gave way to the chorus.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
The simplest psalm formulae, used in the Ambrosian liturgy of Milan for the ferial series, had only two components: (1) a recitation tone (referred to by late-medieval theorists as recitatio, tenor, or tuba) and (2) a cadence (terminatio, differentia, distinctio, divisio etc.) whose notes were set to the last syllables of each verse cursively, that is, without regard to the text accent. There was neither initial figure nor median cadence at the caesura. In Gregorian practice, even for the ferial psalms, the formulae included an initial inflection (initium, intonatio), if only for the first verse, and both median and final cadences – the former usually adjusted for the accent, the latter only sometimes. Evidence suggests that accentual cadences are a later sophistication, perhaps the result of the proto-humanist literary interests of the Carolingian circle. The predominance of accentual cadences at the caesura may be an indication that they are a later development, a sign that older Gregorian practice had been more like the Ambrosian: the verses sung without an internal inflection. The practice of the Greek Church also supports the hypothesis that the choral psalm tones were originally very simple. In the East, the two halves of the verses were sung to the same formula.
This, of course, raises another question. Most psalm verses have a parallel, binary, structure and a clear caesura – features that survived in the Latin translations of the Psalter even when other prosodic devices of Hebrew poetry did not. This parallelism was reflected in the practice of the Synagogue: the alternation of half-verses (by cantor and the congregation) is one of the kinds of psalmody documented in the Talmud. But it should serve as a caution against the assumption that early Christian practices were simply a continuation of the Jewish, that in Western antiphonal psalmody it was always whole verses that were alternated. In the Greek East, the choral alternation of half-verses can be documented, but the divergence from Western usage is perhaps not as significant as it might seem, since some Greek Psalters divide the psalms into twice the usual number of verses.
Recitation formulae were seldom written out in medieval books, and such examples as there are (even those in instructional works) reveal a surprising lack of consistency, especially with respect to the text accent. Initial inflections, for example, are usually treated cursively, but even they were occasionally adjusted to accommodate the accent of the opening syllables. Early monastic regulae stress the importance of choral recitation ‘as if from one mouth’, and no doubt with good reason. It is hard to imagine that the daily practice was very consistent: it would be difficult for a chorus chanting long texts without books to recognize the fifth-to-last or whichever syllable was to be sung to the first note of the cadence, and even more difficult to adjust that cadence ex tempore for the accent.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
In Gregorian practice, the standard tones for the responsory verses and the formulae for the extensive psalmody of the Office are associated with the eight musical modes. For the responsories, there are eight standard tones, and the mode of the refrain determined which would be used. In early antiphoners, no neumes were supplied; the singer was expected to adapt the verse text to the psalm tone ex tempore (any freely composed responsory verses were, of course, written out). In the case of the antiphons, the initial inflection, reciting pitch, and median cadence were similarly decided, although the choice of final cadence usually involved additional considerations and reference to a Tonary, where antiphons were grouped according to mode and secondarily according to termination. In practical service books, the correct cadence was usually indicated by a cue consisting of the notes of the final inflection set to euouae, the vowels of ‘seculorum. Amen’, the last words of the doxology that was almost invariably sung at the conclusion of antiphonal psalmody (see Evovae).
The eight modes were introduced in Frankish regions near the beginning of the 9th century; the recitation formulae are certainly older, and associating them with the modes was obviously to introduce order to an unsystematic practice. In the Ambrosian Church, where the modes were resisted, there are many more psalm tones than in the Gregorian, and the practice found in Ambrosian manuscripts is far from rational: the same recitation tone is frequently employed for chants with different finals and very different melodic characteristics. Even in Gregorian documents, traces remain of the time before modes were involved. The eight modes are the basis of the earliest exposition of antiphonal psalmody, the Commemoratio brevis de tonis et psalmis modulandis, but the treatise does not present eight standard formulae, only six (‘the sixth tone is like the first and the last like the second’). Moreover, in recognizing the legitimacy of certain additional tones it does not include and in rejecting others as ‘spurious’, the treatise gives ingenuous testimony to an earlier, less systematic practice such as is found in the Ambrosian books. Circumstances are somewhat similar for the recitation tones used with responsories: a few medieval manuscripts contain more than the usual eight formulae, but it is not clear whether this represents an earlier, less systematic practice or a later one in which certain, favourite, freely composed verses could be adapted to new texts.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
The principal recitation formulae of Roman-Gregorian practice, which in the Middle Ages came to be adopted throughout almost the whole of Western Europe, are illustrated in the following examples, beginning with the simple psalm tones of antiphonal psalmody (where the principles are most obvious). Although the division of psalm tones into ornate and simple, corresponding roughly with the earlier dichotomy of solo and choral execution, is not entirely straightforward, some stylistic overlap occurs, if only for certain elements of the formulae: undecorated initial inflections and passages of simple recitation are not infrequently found in psalmody that is otherwise highly elaborated. The examples given below are representative, not complete. The practice was never uniform: there were slight variations in melodic detail, and there was even more widespread disagreement about the number of terminations that might be employed. Commonly, there were several to choose from (a 9th-century tonary from Metz includes as many as 13 for mode 7), but some of the more severe monastic orders reduced their number – the Cistercians, for example, to a single one for each mode.
The simple recitation tones for the eight modes are set out in ex.1 (a)–(c), (d)–(f) and (g), (h). Two versions are given, those found in the Commemoratio brevis of the end of the 9th century (labelled CB) and, for the sake of representing the kind of differences encountered in medieval manuscripts, those of the Vatican editions (V) a thousand years later. The simplest tones were those for the psalms sung in the Office: these normally had no inflections for the first syllables after the caesura, but it is typical of the variability of medieval practice that the Commemoratio brevis does prescribe second intonations for all but the 2nd, 4th and 7th modes. Slightly more complex are the formulae used for the New Testament canticles (the Benedictus of Lauds and the Magnificat of Vespers) and the tones used for the remnants of psalmody in the Mass. In the Ambrosian Mass, no simple psalmody survived: by the time of the earliest service books, only the antiphons remained. In the Gregorian Mass, something of the introit psalm persisted, and traces of the communion psalm. The former, usually reduced to a single verse, was sung to formulae such as those from the Vatican editions included in ex.1; the communion psalm seems to have been sung to the same tones as were used for the introit.
Some of the cadences from the Vatican editions in ex.1 are accentual, that is, they are adjusted so that the last stressed syllable, or the last two, are reinforced by the musical accent. The empty notes (semibreves) provide for situations (e.g. ‘dóminus’, ‘adsúmsit me’, ‘confído in te’) where more than one syllable follows the last accent or (in cadences of two accents) where two or more unstressed syllables separate the final two stresses. The square notes (breves) indicate the pitch on which were chanted all syllables not included in the initial inflections and cadences.
In the ordinary, simple psalmody of the Gregorian Office, initial inflections were sung only for the first of the verses to be chanted; the others began immediately with the reciting note. For the slightly more elaborate psalmody of the Benedictus, the Magnificat and (on the rare occasions when more than one verse was specified) the introit, the initial inflections were repeated for each verse. Normally, the figures of the first and second intonations were applied mechanically to the first, the first two, or the first three syllables without regard for the accent. Although the initial inflections of simple psalmody present nothing like the complications of the terminations, the practice (as ex.1 shows) was not perfectly uniform.
In
Ambrosian psalmody, recitation can be found on all notes of the scale. In
Gregorian practice, in keeping with the restrictions of the modal system, only
certain notes were regularly employed: originally, the 5th above the finalis
for the authentic (odd-numbered) modes, and the 3rd above for the plagal –
except for mode 4, whose reciting note is a. The reiteration of the
reciting pitch gives it undoubted prominence, and theorists have made much of
its tonal significance (it is sometimes referred to as the ‘dominant’ of the
mode). But the ‘system’ introduced with the modes was less than systematic and,
before long, changes were made that further diminished the symmetry. Uneasiness
about recitation on the note b – perhaps because this degree of the
scale was unstable, sometimes sung as b
, sometimes as b
– led to the raising of the reciting
note of the 3rd and 8th modes to c. The settled Gregorian practice is
summarized in Table 1. In simple psalmody, the reciting
note is normally the same for both half-verses, but among the irregular tones
that survived to be used occasionally in the Middle Ages are a few that have a
different reciting note before and after the caesura (as do, regularly, the
verse tones of responsories and invitatories). It is rare to find psalm tones
written out, and difficult therefore to know how widespread were ‘exceptions’
to the rule. The ‘regular’ tone for 6th-mode introits is given in ex.1.
However, in the Vatican editions and in some medieval books, the 6th
introit-tone, applied to certain verses, appears to have recitation on a
in the first part and on f in the second. These cases can be explained
as examples where the reciting note does not appear in the second half of the
tone, all the syllables having been needed for the second intonation and
termination (which consists, exceptionally, of eight elements). The widely
used, irregular formula known later as the tonus peregrinus (‘wandering
tone’), given in ex.2 from the Commemoratio
brevis, also appears to have two reciting notes; but what is usually seen
as recitation on g in the second part can also be understood as extra
notes inserted to preserve the text accents of ‘dómino’ and ‘fílios’ in the
cadence.
The mediations of ex.1 consist of a varying number of elements, from two (mode 2) to six (the formula for mode 3 in the Commemoratio brevis). The examples from the Vatican editions demonstrate how these were adapted to accommodate the varying number of syllables that might follow the last, or the last two text accents. In the case of the doxology of the introit, which was tripartite (like that of the invitatories), the second mediation was the same as the first (however, the second intonation was repeated for the third section). It is interesting that this tripartite structure is found only in the doxology: introit verses, however long, were always divided into two parts. In the simple psalmody of the Vatican editions, first half-verses that are exceptionally long are divided, the division marked by a slight pause and a drop from the reciting note to a note a 2nd or 3rd below. This subsidiary inflection (known as the ‘flex’) seems to be a modern addition.
It is usually said that a choice of terminations (differentiae) was provided in order to ensure the smooth transition between the last note of the psalm tones and the first note of the following antiphons. This explanation is not adequate: the endings assigned in medieval books make the connection through every interval from unison to 5th; moreover, for Gregorian tones 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8, there was normally a choice of endings that concluded on the same note. Antiphons that belong to the same melodic family are usually assigned the same psalm termination. But it is not clear whether the choice was made because of some structural characteristic of the antiphon’s melody, or merely because antiphon and cadence were associated traditionally. It does seem likely that the superfluous assortment of endings (like the irregular psalm tones) survives from the earlier, unsystematic practice before the introduction of the modes. In ex.3 are given the terminations from a 13th-century English antiphoner (GB-WO F.160; PalMus, 1st ser., xii, 1922/R) that fairly represents the medieval customs. Such endings, in the Vatican editions, are usually adjusted for the accent; the medieval practice is elusive. Euouae, the conventional cue representing the termination in the service books, presents only one of several possible combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables, and that one (owing to the appearance of the Hebrew word ‘amen’, whose accentuation was uncertain) is sometimes ambiguous. Since written-out examples of other texts with different patterns of accentuation are usually lacking, it is impossible to say whether it was normal in the Middle Ages to add extra notes so that the last text accent (or last two) coincided with the musical stress. It seems likely, however, that such adjustments are niceties from later times, when the psalms might be chanted from books.
See also Inflection.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
Although the responsorial psalmody that followed the extensive readings of the Mass and Office was invariably elaborate, the short readings, or chapters (capitula), assigned at the Little Hours of Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Compline (and in monasteries, at Lauds and Vespers as well) were followed by the brief, simple psalmody of the Short Responsories (responsoria brevia). In a normal performance their refrain was sung twice before the verse, once (but only the second part) after the verse and once (complete) after the doxology. The medieval practice was not uniform, but in most churches a small number of formulae were used throughout the year, with special tones (elaborations of the simple formulae, newly composed melodies, or adaptations of long responsories) reserved for only the most important occasions. In ex.4, the simple 4th-mode tone used (except for saints’ feasts) throughout Advent has been adapted to two psalm verses. The history of the Short Responsories is obscure. The simple melodies – in appearance rather like antiphons, although adapted to various texts much like psalm tones – are sometimes used for the refrains as well as for the verses. This might suggest that the Short Responsories are remnants of an early stage of psalmody (Hiley, 1993), but they may just as well be late additions. The development of the Little Hours is not well documented: in the early Middle Ages they varied so little from day to day that monks, clerks and nuns could be relied upon to sing what was needed from memory; it is only in later books, at a time when the minor Offices had lost something of their stark simplicity, that their requirements were fully written out.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
From the 6th century, Psalm xciv (‘O come, let us sing unto the Lord and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms’) has been sung at the beginning of the night Office (Matins) in the Roman rite as an invitatory (invitatorium), that is, an ‘invitation’ to prayer. The same psalm is sung traditionally in the morning service in the Synagogue (see Jewish music, §III, 2(i)). Invitatory psalmody is irregular in a number of ways: (1) the text is that of the ‘Roman’ Psalter, an early version (with an extra phrase) otherwise superseded in Gregorian regions by the ‘Gallican’ translation; (2) the psalm has been divided into five verses, not the usual 11; (3) these five verses are divided, not into the usual two hemistichs, but (like the doxologies of the introit and the invitatories) into three – three phrases in which further divisions are often suggested by the structure of the musical formulae. The psalmody of the invitatory also stands apart from ordinary psalmody in another way: the pattern of refrain repetition is much more complex. It seems that the general practice was to sing the antiphon twice before the verses were chanted and twice after the doxology, to repeat it in full after the odd-numbered verses, but to sing only the last part of the antiphon after the even-numbered ones.
Some of these features suggest antiquity, as does, perhaps, the fact that only six of the modes are represented. Even though there are a great many invitatory antiphons, they were assigned only to modes 2 to 7 (a single, relatively late, exception is known; an invitatory antiphon elsewhere assigned to the 4th mode is assigned to mode 1 in a Sarum manuscript). Normally, however, there were more than six recitation tones for the invitatory: the usual number seems to have been about a dozen, but in some manuscripts as many as 20 are found. Alternatives were especially widespread for the 4th mode. A comprehensive account of the medieval repertory will not be possible until a complete inventory has been compiled.
Some of the invitatory tones are close to simple psalmody, though with the added complications of second and third intonations, a second internal cadence and (often) more than one reciting note. An example of a relatively simple tone with a single reciting note is given in ex.5. Other invitatory tones, generally speaking those for important feasts, are much more ornate. They are more like free melodies adapted to different texts than formulae, and their structure is often obscure.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
In the Middle Ages, not all liturgical psalms were sung with refrains or in antiphonal alternation; direct psalmody survived in both Mass and Office. The tone used at Mass for this kind of recitation is among the most elaborate in the medieval books. The Gregorian tracts and their Ambrosian counterparts the cantus were originally full psalms; but as in the case of the responsories, this psalmody was later abbreviated, usually (in the Mass) to one, two or three verses, although there may be as many as five. In Gregorian books, two melodies, one in mode 2 and one in mode 8, serve for all chants identified as tracts, but those of the 2nd mode are properly responsories. The only authentic tract melody – a formula in fact, though greatly and distinctively elaborated – belongs to the 8th mode. This tone had other uses as well: at Mass (in Gregorian books) for the recitation of (the last part of) one of the lessons on Ember Saturdays; and in the Office for certain recitations in Holy Week. In all these instances, even in the Middle Ages, the tone was used for the chanting of a whole canticle or psalm. That this same formula – the more interesting in that it was unquestionably intended for solo recitation – is the only one employed in Ambrosian books, is but one indication of its antiquity.
There is, of course, no way to be sure that the elaborate formula with impressive melismas found in the medieval books for the cantus and the 8th-mode tracts is ancient. But the melismas aside, there is some reason to think so: the tract-cantus repertory did not receive the kind of development seen in the rest of the liturgy, where new feasts, with new responsories, new antiphons, new alleluias (etc.) were added in every century. The tracts and cantus belong to the static ferial liturgy; they kept their place at Mass only in Lent (when feasts were excluded) and on other penitential occasions (cantus were sung in the vigil Mass of certain saints, but such vigils were considered penitential preparation for the feast that followed). At other times, these chants were replaced – in stages, between the 5th and 9th centuries – by the alleluia. ‘New’ tracts may have been added in the Middle Ages, but all texts were taken from the psalms, and no new melodies were produced.
The formula used for the tracts and cantus (like those of the invitatory) articulates more divisions of the psalm verse than those used in simple psalmody: the major division is into hemistichs, but each hemistich is further divided (even when the sense does not suggest it), and for each of the four sections there is an initial inflection, reciting note (if the text is long enough) and termination. In Gregorian books, the operation of the formula is often obscured (the tracts often seem more like free melodies than formulae; it is as though later singers sometimes lost sight of the original structure and used the elements of the formula without regard for their proper syntax). In Ambrosian and Old Roman books the structure can still be seen clearly, but even so it is only when several cantus are compared that the elements of the formula can be seen for what they are. The successive verses of tracts were sung to progressively more elaborate melodies. In the cantus it can be seen more clearly that specific forms of the formula were used for first, second and third verses, with successively longer melismatic expansions of the cadences. It may be presumed that this complication is a later development of the Mass chants; when the same formula is used for the more extensive psalmody in Holy Week, it is applied to the successive verses without such elaboration.
In ex.6 are compared the Gregorian, Ambrosian and Old Roman settings of ‘Laudate dominum omnes gentes’ (the first verse of Psalm cxvi in the Roman Psalter). The musical elements (initial inflection, reciting note on c, and termination) are typically less obvious in the Gregorian version than in the other two, but the comparison makes clear that the melody and procedure for adapting it are common to all three. The notes under the brackets are the characteristic elaborations of the final note of the cadence in each of the four sections; in some settings these cadential elaborations were very greatly expanded.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
Also among the most ornate of the medieval psalm settings were the long responsories (responsoria prolixa) sung after the lessons in the Office (mostly at Matins and Vespers) and at Mass. The chants normally consisted of two parts, a refrain – the ‘respond’ – and a verse or verses. A doxology was associated, but it was shorter than that used in antiphonal psalmody (the full text was, ‘Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, just as for the responsoria brevia) and it was not sung with every responsory but normally only for the last of a series. With rare exceptions, mostly in the case of very short examples, the refrain was sung only in full at the beginning (though sometimes more than once); after the verses, only its last part was repeated. This shortening of the refrain is probably to be seen as an abbreviation of the earlier practice, but it was not a medieval development. It is obvious that the texts of many responsories were composed (or chosen) so that the repetendum would make grammatical sense in conjunction with the last words of the verse. The chants of Matins are frequently referred to as the Great Responsories, but they are not consistently different in style from those sung in other Offices; indeed, Matins responsories were not infrequently assigned elsewhere. Gregorian manuscripts refer to the responsory of the Mass as the ‘respond-gradual’ or ‘gradual’ (responsorium graduale, gradualium) apparently because such chants were sung from the steps (gradus) of the ambo. The analogous Mozarabic and Ambrosian terms, ‘psalmo’ and ‘psalmellus’, respectively, strengthen the argument that the responsories of the medieval books are the remnants of the responsorial psalms sung between the lessons in the early Church. The Ambrosian term, which means ‘little psalm’ can even be seen as a reference to the abbreviation of the earlier, fuller psalmody that had occupied the same position in the liturgy.
The verses of the responsories of the Office are mostly sung to standard tones, although many can only be described as freely composed; in the Mass, all the verses are set to what appear to be individual melodies. In the ‘free’ verses of the Mass and Office, certain musical phrases are used again and again, migrating between chants of the same mode, and even between chants of different modes. Such verse settings (and the responds with similar characteristics) have been described as centos (Lat.: ‘patchwork’); their construction is far from systematic, but it is not impossible that some of them (those found in the oldest books) have been imperfectly transmitted, and that in earlier times their structure would have been more obvious, perhaps even obviously formulaic.
Most of the responsory verses are psalmodic, but many (these, presumably, later additions) have texts taken from scripture outside the psalms or newly composed. Whatever the source, the verse texts were set to the standard tones in the same way. The eight regular recitation tones for the Gregorian responsories are given in ex.7, from the Vatican editions. Each is adapted to the doxology and to a psalm verse or scriptural citation. The hollow notes (breves) represent pitches required to accommodate the accent and to provide for extra syllables in certain texts. As in the case of the simple tones, the medieval practice for the responsorial tones was not as consistent as that found in the modern books; but the recitation formulae in ex.7 do fairly represent the late Middle Ages in places where the practice, with respect to the text accent, was punctilious. In structure, these tones resemble those of simple psalmody, but the adaptation of the components to the text is much more complicated, and differences between the verse settings are considerably greater. The initial inflections and second intonations are adjusted for the accented syllables, usually at the point of the first stress, although in some cases (there is no clear rationale) this is delayed until the second or even third word. In such cases a prosthetic recitation, sometimes of several syllables, precedes the ‘initial’ inflection of the tone. The reciting note is not always obvious: sometimes it is substantially decorated (mostly by higher notes that serve to reinforce accented syllables); sometimes, in the case of short texts (whose syllables are taken up by the initial inflection and cadence), it is omitted altogether. The ‘rule’ governing the relationship between the responsorial reciting notes and the final of the tone is even less defensible than that postulated for simple psalmody: only the 5th responsory tone has the same reciting note in both halves, and there is some uncertainty between c and b in the second half of the 3rd-mode tone and the first half of the tone for mode 8. The median cadence of all the responsory tones consists of five melodic elements; in ex.5 (though not consistently in medieval manuscripts and probably not originally) this is treated as a cadence of one accent: the median inflection begins on the third syllable before the last stress, and if the last syllables produce a proparoxytone (as in the case of ‘fílio’ in the doxology), an extra note is inserted before the second to last element. It should be noted that although the adjustment to the cadence is made in accordance with the last accent, the stress of this syllable is not reinforced (in the usual sense of the word) by the alteration. Normally, there was a single ending for each responsory tone; there is nothing like the system of differentiae found in simple psalmody, although alternate endings can sometimes be found. The terminations, like the median cadences, consist of five elements, but in the ending they are sung cursively to the last five syllables whatever their accentuation.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
According to the Byzantine historian Sozomenus, who wrote in the mid-5th century, the alleluia was sung in Rome only on Easter Day. We learn from Pope Gregory I (d 604) that before his time the Mass alleluia was sung until Pentecost, and that he had been criticized for extending it beyond the Easter season. By about 900, the time of the earliest Gregorian books, the alleluia was sung in all Masses of the year that were not penitential, and for all these occasions verses were provided. There is no reference to verses in the earliest authors; presumably they were added only after the alleluia lost its exclusively paschal connotation, added in order to make the chant appropriate, or at least distinctive, on the particular day. The repertory of Gregorian verses was very greatly expanded in the Middle Ages, with texts taken freely from scriptural and non-scriptural sources; however, a significant portion, if not the majority, of alleluia verses have texts taken from the psalms. Although it may be that the psalm texts of the earliest alleluia verses were sung by the soloist to elaborate tones, perhaps like those used for the tract, this cannot now be determined by analysis – not least because it is often impossible to tell which verses are old and which are later additions that might have been constructed according to different principles. Most of the settings known to us have the appearance of individual melodies, like the free verses of responsories, but in many of the alleluia verses it is possible to see evidence of a formulaic basis. The verse sung at the Mass of the Easter Vigil is given (from the Graduale Romanum) in ex.8. Confitemini domino quoniam bonus is probably among the most ancient of alleluia verses; the association of this text with Alleluia is found in the Psalter itself, in Psalm cvi and again in cxvii. In ex.8 the verse Confitemini Domino is divided by melodic inflections into four sections: each begins with an intonation (whose essential motion is from g to c) and each concludes with a cadential figure; moreover, the operation of a reciting note (c) is unmistakable. The cadential figure ends on g in three of the four sections of the verse. The symmetry would be more complete (and the similarity to a psalm tone even more striking) if the second section also ended on g, and this would be so if the word ‘quoniam’ (of ‘quoniam in saeculum’) were begun five notes later. This may in fact have been the case. The text underlay in ex.8 is indeed that found in the earliest manuscripts, but for the Mass of the Major Litany, the same verse text is set to a version of the same melody, and there the third section does seem to begin at precisely this point (see CH-SGs 339, p.86; PalMus, 1st ser, i, 1889/R). Other procedures were also employed in setting alleluia verses, perhaps even in the earliest times. The verses of the Ambrosian alleluia, whose development was very restricted (the medieval books contain 52 verse texts, set to only ten melodies), are sung to what seem to be adaptations of the alleluia melisma – that is to say, they seem to be early examples of the practice later employed in prosulae and the early sequence.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
Although in medieval books the offertory is often identified as an antiphon, the nature of this chant is disputed: some believe it to have been responsorial from the beginning; others presume that the form known to us is a later abbreviation – and stylistic elaboration – of what was originally (like the introit and communion) a simple psalm and refrain to accompany the bringing of the gifts to the altar. In the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, the Gregorian offertory lost its verses entirely; however, in the earliest books (and in the Ambrosian rite) some offertories do have verses – one to three (rarely four) – the great majority of them taken from the psalms. No trace of an earlier, simpler, style of offertory verse is known to survive, and if the offertory did develop its unique, flamboyant style by a process of elaboration of such psalmody, this is not apparent in the verses known to us. Recitation on or around one note is not hard to find; but the verse settings have a very wide ambitus and a lack of tonal focus that would be hard to relate to the simple formulae used for antiphonal psalmody elsewhere in the liturgy. There are, moreover, frequent melodic connections between offertory verse and refrain, and repetitions of text phrases that have no parallel in any other psalmody of the Mass and Office. By and large, these (and other) features suggest that the offertory verses belong to a late stratum of Western chant.
Psalm, §II: Latin monophonic psalmody
‘Le cursus et la psalmodie’, Le codex 121 de la Bibliothèque d'Einsiedeln (Xe–XIe siècle): Antiphonale missarum Sancti Gregorii, PalMus, 1st ser., iv (1894/R)
P. Wagner: Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien: ein Handbuch der Choralwissenschaft, i: Ursprung und Entwicklung der liturgischen Gesangsformen bis zum Ausgange des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 2/1901, 3/1911/R; Eng. trans., 1901/R); ii: Neumenkunde: Paläographie des liturgischen Gesanges (Fribourg, 1905, 2/1912/R); iii: Gregorianische Formenlehre: eine choralische Stilkunde (Leipzig, 1921/R)
E. Garbagnati: ‘Ricerche sull'antica salmodia ambrosiana’, Rassegna gregoriana, x (1911), 361–86; also in Ambrosius, iv (1928), 25–7, 131–7, 181–5; v (1929), 33–8
A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘Parallelen zwischen gregorianischen und hebräisch-orientalischen Gesangsweisen’, ZMw, iv (1921–2), 515–23
A. Auda: Les modes et les tons de la musique et spécialement de la musique médiévale (Brussels, 1930)
P. Wagner: ‘Untersuchungen zu den Gesangstexten und zur responsorialen Psalmodie der altspanischen Liturgie’, Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, 1st ser.: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, ii, ed. H. Finke (Münster, 1930), 67–113
P. Ferretti: Estetica gregoriana ossia Trattato delle forme musicali del canto gregoriano, i (Rome, 1934; Fr. trans., 1938); ii completed and ed. P. Ernetti as Estetica gregoriana dei recitativi liturgici (Venice, 1964)
E. Cardine: ‘La psalmodie des introits’, Revue grégorienne, xxvi (1947), 172–6, 229–36; xxvii (1948), 16–21
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘L'évolution des tons psalmodiques au Moyen-Age’, Atti del congresso internazionale di musica sacra [I] [Rome, 1950], ed. I. Anglès (Tournai, 1952), 267–74
S.J.P. Van Dijk: ‘Medieval Terminology and Methods of Psalm Singing’, MD, vi (1952), 7–26
H. Avenary: ‘Formal Structure of Psalms and Canticles in Early Jewish and Christian Chant’, MD, vii (1953), 1–13
C. Gindele: ‘Doppelchor und Psalmvortrag im Frühmittelalter’, Mf, vi (1953), 296–300
E. Cardine: ‘La corde récitative du 3e ton psalmodique dans l'antique tradition sangallienne’, EG, i (1954), 47–52
J. Gajard: ‘Les récitations modales des 3e et 4e modes et les manuscrits bénéventains et aquitains’, EG, i (1954), 9–45
W. Apel: Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, IN, 1958, 2/1990)
S. Corbin: ‘La cantillation des rituels chrétiens’, RdM, xlvii (1961), 3–36
O. Heiming: ‘Zum monastischen Offizium von Kassianus bis Kolumbanus’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, vii (1961), 89–156
Z. Falvy: ‘Zur Frage von Differenzen der Psalmodie’, SMw, xxv (1962), 160–73
E. Jammers: ‘Der Choral als Rezitativ’, AMw, xxii (1965), 143–68
H. Berger: Untersuchungen zu den Psalmdifferenzen (Regensburg, 1966)
H. Leeb: Die Psalmodie bei Ambrosius (Vienna, 1967)
A. Herzog and A. Hajdu: ‘A la recherche du tonus peregrinus dans la tradition musicale juive’, Yuval, no.1 (1968), 194–203
D.M. Randel: ‘Responsorial Psalmody in the Mozarabic Rite’, EG, x (1969), 87–116
D.M. Randel: The Responsorial Psalm Tones for the Mozarabic Office (Princeton, NJ, 1969)
A. Sendrey: Music in Ancient Israel (New York, 1969; Ger. trans., 1970) [see review by E. Werner in JAMS, xxiii (1970), 529–31]
R. Erbacher: Tonus peregrinus: aus der Geschichte eines Psalmtons (Münsterschwarzach, 1971)
M. Huglo: Les tonaires: inventaire, analyse, comparaison (Paris, 1971)
J. Gélineau: Chant et musique dans le culte chrétien: principes, lois et applications (Paris, 1962; Eng. trans., 1964)
J. Claire: ‘La psalmodie responsoriale antique’, Revue grégorienne, xli (1963), 8–29, 49–62, 77–102
J. Claire: ‘L'évolution modale dans les récitatifs liturgiques’, Revue grégorienne, xli (1963), 127–51
R. Steiner: ‘Some Questions about the Gregorian Offertories and their Verses’, JAMS, xix (1966), 162–81
T. Bailey: ‘Accentual and Cursive Cadences in Gregorian Psalmody’, JAMS, xxix (1976), 463–71
T. Bailey: ‘Ambrosian Psalmody: an Introduction’, Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario, ii (1977), 65–78
T. Bailey: ‘De modis musicis: a New Edition and Explanation’, KJb, lxi–lxii (1977–8), 47–60
T. Bailey: ‘Ambrosian Psalmody: the Formulae’, Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario, iii (1978), 72–96
T. Bailey: Commemoratio brevis de tonis et psalmis modulandis: Introduction, Critical Edition, Translation (Ottowa, 1979)
J. Claire: ‘The Tonus Peregrinus: a Question Well Put?’, Orbis musicae, vii (1979–80), 3–14
D.M. Randel: ‘Antiphonal Psalmody in the Mozarabic Rite’, IMSCR XII [Berkeley, 1977], ed. D. Heartz and B. Wade (Kassel, 1981), 414–22
T. Bailey: The Ambrosian Alleluias (Englefield Green, 1983)
J. Dyer: ‘Latin Psalters, Old Roman and Gregorian Chants’, KJb, lxviii (1984), 11–30
R. Steiner: ‘Antiphons for the Benedicite at Lauds’, Journal of the Plainsong and Mediaeval Music Society, vii (1984), 1–17
D. Randel: ‘El antiguo rito hispánico y la salmodía primitiva en occidente’, RdMc, viii (1985), 229–38
R. Taft: The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: the Origins of the Divine Office and its Meaning for Today (Collegeville, MN, 1986, 2/1993)
T. Bailey: The Ambrosian Cantus (Ottawa, 1987)
R. Steiner: ‘Reconstructing the Repertory of Invitatory Tones and their Uses at Cluny in the Late 11th Century’, Musicologie médiévale: notations et séquences [Paris 1982], ed. M. Huglo (Paris, 1987), 175–82
J. Dyer: ‘Monastic Psalmody of the Middle Ages’, Revue bénédictine, xcix (1989), 41–74
J. Dyer: ‘The Singing of Psalms in the Early-Medieval Office’, Speculum, lxiv (1989), 535–78
J. Gélineau: ‘Music and Singing in the Liturgy’, The Study of Liturgy, ed. C. Jones and others (London, 1978, 2/1992), 493–502
D. Hiley: Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford, 1993)
R. Steiner: ‘Non-Psalm Verses for Introits and Communions’, Recherches nouvelles sur les tropes liturgiques, ed. W. Arlt and G. Björkvall (Stockholm, 1993), 441–7
Although the Byzantine rite is renowned mainly for its hymnography, the Psalter provides the basic structure and the texts for substantial parts of the Offices and the Divine Liturgy. Three different forms of psalmody are practised in these services: fixed psalms, continuous psalmody, and selected single psalm verses, as in the responsorial chants, the prokeimenon and the allēlouïarion. In addition to the 150 psalms, the Septuagint version of the Psalter often included the supernumerary Psalm cli, although this was not part of the division of the Psalter into kathismata for continuous psalmody (see below). From the 5th century onwards the Greek Psalter normally also included the canticles; there were originally as many as 14, but in the 10th century a standard order of nine was universally established (see Heirmologion). Liturgical psalters also often included early Christian hymns, such as Phōs hilaron (‘O gladsome light’), and the Byzantine Gloria, Doxa en hypsistois Theō (‘Glory to God in the highest’).
Two different types of medieval psalter survive, one adapted for the monastic rite and the other for the urban rite celebrated in cathedrals (later referred to as the Asmatikē akolouthia or ‘chanted rite’). The extant liturgical and musical sources show, however, that in their use of the Psalter these two traditions were not wholly independent of each other.
In the monastic rite the Psalter is divided into 20 kathismata (‘sessions’), each of equal length and consisting of between one and five psalms. Each kathisma is subdivided into three staseis (‘stations’), also known as antiphona; a Doxology concludes each stasis. Dots indicate the verse divisions (stichoi) in both psalms and canticles (according to the typical organization of the biblical Book of Psalms, each stichos corresponds to a half-verse). The division of the Psalter into kathismata pertains to the continuous psalmody of Hesperinos and Orthros, the evening and morning Offices, during which the Psalter was recited once a week (twice weekly during Lent), always beginning at the Great Hesperinos of Saturday with the first kathisma of the Psalter. In addition to the continuous psalmody, fixed psalms and psalm complexes were sung at every service: at Hesperinos – the prooimiakos (Psalm ciii, the opening ‘prooimiac’ psalm) and the Kyrie ekekraxa (Psalms cxl, cxli, cxxix and cxvi); at Orthros – the ‘hexapsalmos’ (a complex of six psalms beginning with Psalm iii and ending with Psalm cxlii.10b), the pentēkostos (Psalm l), the Theos Kyrios (Psalm cxvii), the polyeleos (Psalms cxxxiv–cxxxvi) and hoi ainoi (‘Lauds’; Psalms cxlviii–cl); and at the Divine Liturgy on Sundays and important feasts – three antiphons (Psalms xci, xcii and xciv; see Divine liturgy (byzantine)).
In the urban rite, leaving aside the fixed psalms of Hesperinos and Orthros, 140 psalms are divided into 68 antiphona, each of which consists of an entire psalm or a group of psalms; only the long amōmos psalm (Psalm cxviii), sung at Orthros on Sundays, is divided into three antiphona. In the odd-numbered antiphona each stichos (‘verse’) concludes with an allēlouïa refrain; the even-numbered ones are sung with a variety of brief ‘litanic’ refrains, for example, ‘Epakouson me, Kyrie’ (‘Hear me, O Lord’). These litanic refrains, called ephymnia, epiphthegmata or hypopsalmata etc., are often indicated in the margins of Psalters.
The monastic rite also makes ample use of the allēlouïa and other refrains, but more significant are the troparia (see Troparion) sung with the psalms. In the fixed psalms these intercalations are termed stichēra (see Stichērarion) and are inserted between the last eight, six or four verses and the doxology, according to the solemnity of the feast. The last part of the doxology, ‘kai nun …’ (‘both now …’), is normally followed by a theotokion – a troparion in honour of the Mother of God. After the final doxology of each kathisma in continuous psalmody, a troparion (likewise known as a kathisma) is sung.
In both the monastic and urban rites the performance of psalmody was primarily antiphonal, with one choir taking over from the other at each new verse – a practice indicated in the notated manuscripts by ‘allagma’ (‘change’).
According to the Byzantine orders of service – the typika or synaxaria – the standard term for psalmody was stichologein (‘verse-saying’) or simply psalmon legein (‘to say a psalm’). However, except for a possible reference in the Hagiopolitēs (chap.45) to the adaptation of the psalmodic cadence to lead on to the following troparion or the beginning of the next verse, Byzantine music theory does not deal explicitly with the technicalities of simple psalmodic practice. The latter must therefore be studied through the few verses set in simple style that are notated in manuscripts. In general, simple psalmody remained an oral tradition.
The simplest notated settings are ‘model-verses’ – typically the first verse of a psalm or psalm complex – written in sequence in each of the eight modes to a syllabic psalm tone, which could then be adapted to the subsequent verses. Although psalm verses in a relatively simple style are found in such 13th-century manuscripts as I-GR E.α.II, Γ.γ.II, IV and VII, and F-Pn gr.261 (dated ad 1289), ‘model-verses’ are first notated in the akolouthiai manuscripts from the 14th century onwards. The simplest settings are of Psalms cxli.8 (from the Kyrie ekekraxa), l.3, cxlviii.1, ix.2 and doxologies, notated in each of the eight modes (see ex.9), two sets of prokeimena (one for Sunday morning and one for weekdays) and the first verses of the canticles and the Beatitudes (Matthew v.3). Strunk (1960) has shown that the simple psalmodic cadences are quoted in the openings of the stichēra for the anabathmoi (the ‘gradual psalms’, cxix–cxxx), which are located in the oktōēchos section of the stichērarion. The written tradition of the anabathmoi goes back at least to the 10th century, when the earliest stichēraria were copied; but the syllabic psalm tones are probably earlier, for the stichēra of the anabathmoi are traditionally ascribed to Theodore Studites, who flourished in about 800.
In the simple psalm tones, intonation and reciting note are determined by the placing of the main accents in the text, whereas the psalmodic cadence is of the cursive type, invariably applied to the last four syllables regardless of accentuation (see ex.10). The psalm tone may begin on the reciting note of a given mode or use a brief opening formula, which in the 2nd authentic and the 1st, 2nd and 4th plagal modes duplicates the modal intonations (see Jung), and which in all modes except mode 1 is determined by the text accent. These opening formulae may be prepared by a number of unaccented syllables, thus creating secondary reciting notes, a principle that in a few cases applies also to the internal accentuation patterns.
The main reciting notes in the authentic modes are identical with the high theoretical finalis, a 5th below the low final. The plagal modes, however, are irregular with regard to the pitch of their reciting notes: modes 1 plagal and 2 plagal both use G; modes 1 authentic and 3 plagal (barys) use A; modes 2 authentic and 4 plagal use B; and modes 3 and 4 authentic use C and D respectively.
The tonic accent rises a 2nd or a 3rd from the reciting note and is often introduced by a melodic element covering one or two unaccented syllables, resulting in a variety of accentuation patterns. There is no mediant (or flexa) in Byzantine psalmody, but the verse, half-verse or full verse is sung straight through to the psalmodic cadence.
Melodic ornamentation and adaptation to the following melody are both characteristics of the psalmodic cadences (in ex.10 they are given only in their simplest form). The cadence of the doxology in mode 3 authentic shows both ornamentation and adaptation (see ex.11). In mode 3 plagal (barys) two different cursive cadences are used, one ending on the theoretical final F, which was probably used only at the very end of the doxology, and the other ending on G for all the preceding verses.
Strunk has suggested that these simple and flexible melodic procedures derived from very archaic psalmodic principles. Likewise, the coincidence of recitation patterns in modes 1 authentic and 3 plagal (barys), and the irregularity of the recitation patterns in the plagal modes compared with their regularity of intonations and cadences, may indicate a compromise between archaic recitation practices and the system of the oktōēchos.
Most of the verses found in the akolouthiai manuscripts are more elaborated than those shown above in ex.9. These elaborated settings may be divided into two groups. The first, consisting of traditional settings that are only moderately embellished and sporadically influenced by the ‘kalophonic’ style of composition, are either anonymous or labelled with terms such as palaion (‘old’), politikon (‘Constantinopolitan’), thessalonikaion (‘Thessalonian’) or agiosophitikon (‘from Hagia Sophia’). A moderately embellished style is also typical of the traditional settings of the fixed psalms of Hesperinos and Orthros in the akolouthiai manuscripts. Elaborated psalm settings are found as early as the 13th century, particularly in the allēlouïa refrains and the half-verses selected as refrains for the fixed psalms, whereas simple settings of the same psalms are found in later sources and bear the designation hagioreitikon (‘from Mount Athos’) or ekklēsiastikon (‘for church use’).
In the second type of elaborated psalmody, the verses are ascribed to named composers of the late 13th century to the 15th, and the melodies are clearly influenced by the kalophonic style (see Akolouthiai), although elements of simple psalmody also appear (see ex.12). It is not known why only a selection of the verses are notated in the akolouthiai manuscripts. In some cases the manuscripts provide rubrics (usually next to the simpler settings) concerning the performance of the chants: for example, ‘the same melody [is sung] till the end of the psalm’, indicating that the melody type should be adapted to all the following verses, although each would have different numbers of syllables and accentuation patterns. Other possible interpretations are that the fixed psalms were stylized and only selected notated verses were sung, or that perhaps the missing verses were performed in simple psalmodic style according to the principles of oral tradition.
Elaborated psalm verses for the Koinōnikon, the Prokeimenon, the Allēlouïarion, and for some special psalm complexes sung at Christmas, Epiphany and Holy Saturday, are included in the asmatikon and psaltikon, the old chant collections of the cathedral rite.
See also Byzantine chant.
A. Rahlfs, ed.: Psalmi cum odis (Göttingen, 1931, 3/1979)
O. Strunk: ‘A First look at Byzantine Psalmody’, BAMS, xi–xiii (1948), 19–21
H. Schneider: ‘Die biblischen Oden in Jerusalem und Konstantinopel’, Biblica, xxx (1949), 433–52
O. Strunk: ‘The Byzantine Office at Hagia Sophia’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, ix–x (1955–6), 175–202
B. di Salvo: ‘Gli àsmata nella musica bizantina’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, new ser., xiii (1959), 45–50, 127–45; xiv (1960), 145–78
O. Strunk: ‘The Antiphons of the Oktoechos’, JAMS, xiii (1960), 50–67
B. di Salvo: ‘Asmatikon’, Bolletino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, new ser., xvi (1962), 135–58
E.V. Williams: John Koukouzeles’ Reform of Byzantine Chanting for Great Vespers in the Fourteenth Century (diss., Yale U., 1968)
C. Hannick: ‘Etude sur l’akolouthia asmatikē’, Jb der österreichischen Byzantinistik, xix (1970), 243–60
E.V. Williams: ‘The Treatment of Text in the Kalophonic Chanting of Psalm 2’, Studies in Eastern Chant, ii, ed. M. Velimirović (Oxford, 1971), 173–93
O. Strunk: ‘Die Gesänge der byzantinisch-griechischen Liturgie’, Die Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik, ed. K.G. Fellerer, i (Kassel, 1972), 128–47
M. Velimirović: ‘The Prooemiac Psalm of Byzantine Vespers’, Words and Music: the Scholar’s View: in Honor of A. Tillman Merritt, ed. L. Berman (Cambridge, MA, 1972), 317–37
M.M. Morgan: ‘The Musical Setting of Psalm 134: the Polyeleos’, Studies in Eastern Chant, iii, ed. M. Velimirović (London, 1973), 112–23
F. von Lilienfeld: ‘Psalmengebet und christlichen Dichtung in der kirchlichen und monastischen Praxis des Ostens’, Liturgie und Dichtung: ein interdiziplinäres Kompendium, ed. H. Becker and R. Kaczynski (St Ottilien, 1983), 465–507
A. Jung: ‘The Settings of the Evening and Morning Psalms according to the Manuscript Sinai gr. 1255’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen Age grec et latin, xlvii (1984), 3–63
D.H. Touliatos-Banker: The Byzantine Amomos Chant of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Thessaloniki, 1984)
D. Conomos: The Late Byzantine and Slavonic Communion Cycle: Liturgy and Music (Washington DC, 1985)
E. Toncheva: ‘Polieynoto tvorchestvo na Joan Kukuzel v konteksta na balkanskata carkovnopeveska praktika (po rukopis Atina no 2458 ot 1336 g.)’, Dokladi: Balgaristika II: Sofia 1986, ed. P. Zarev and others (Sofia, 1986–9), xvii: Teatr i kino: muzik, 224–62
G. Stathēs: ‘Hē asmatikē diaphoropiïsē ston kōdika EBE 2458’ [A comparison of the songs in codex EBE 2458], Christianikē Thessalonikē, palaiologeios epochē: Vlatadon 1987 (Thessaloniki, 1989), 165–211
S. Harris: ‘Psalmodic Traditions and the Christmas and Epiphany Troparia as Preserved in 13th-Century Psaltika and Asmatika’, Cantus Planus IV: Pécs 1990, 205–19
S. Harris: ‘Two Chants in the Byzantine Rite for Holy Saturday’, PMM, i (1992), 149–66
S. Kujumdz'eva: ‘The “Kekragaria” in the Sources from the 14th to the Beginning of the 19th Century’, Cantus Planus VI: Éger 1993, 449–63
E. Toncheva: ‘The “Latrinos” Settings of the Polyeleos, Psalm 135: to the Typological Problems of the Late Byzantine Psalmody’, Cantus Planus VI: Éger 1993, 473–92
C. Troelsgård: ‘The Prokeimena in Byzantine Rite: Performance and Tradition’, Cantus Planus VI: Éger 1993, 65–77
S. Harris: ‘The Byzantine Prokeimena’, PMM, iii (1994), 133–47
S. Kujumdz'eva: ‘Verses and Redactions of Psalm 140’, Musica antiqua X: Bydgoszcz 1994, 151–65
The ancient Hebrew psalms were adopted as the basis of formal worship in the Christian Church, whose earliest services emphasized the psalms. In the Roman Church this feature survived most clearly in the Office, which included the recitation of the entire Psalter each week. In the Mass, however, the expansion of the liturgy throughout the Middle Ages and the increasing elaboration of antiphons and responsorial material led to a shortening of the psalms, so that eventually the introit, gradual and other parts of the Proper seldom contained more than a single psalm verse (indicated by V in liturgical books). Complete psalms thus became characteristic of the Office, and of certain ceremonies and processions. For most of its history the Roman psalter has used the ‘poetic prose’ of the Vulgate translation of the Bible, each psalm being sung to one of the eight melodic formulae (‘tones’) which could easily be adapted to succeeding verses of different length.
In the 16th century most Protestant Churches sought to return to a form of worship based largely on psalms in the vernacular, and prose translations were sung in several languages, including German and English. But to encourage congregational singing, many Protestants adopted metrical versions, using strophic melodies analogous to hymn tunes. The need for adaptability in the prose versions, and the effect of doctrinal pressures on Protestant metrical forms, meant that polyphonic treatment of liturgical psalms seldom amounted to more than simple chordal harmonization. Their functional character, and particularly the use of recurrent music for each verse or pair of verses, kept them distinct from the repertory of through-composed psalm settings used as occasional motets or anthems.
In the Roman Catholic Church the Gregorian tones first attracted improvised polyphony during the late 9th century. The early treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis (c900) include psalm verses among their examples, and in the latter there is a polyphonic elaboration of the tonus peregrinus setting the last verse of Psalm cxiv–cxv (In exitu Israel). In some of the sources for Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus (?1025–6) one of the examples of organum sets the opening verse of Psalm xciv, although not using the psalm tone itself. In the later Middle Ages this improvised polyphony may have been close to fauxbourdon: there are very few written examples and they are nearly always for the psalms of Sunday Vespers, such as Binchois' In exitu Israel and the anonymous cycle of five in I-MC 871. Even in the 16th century only Italy and Spain had any strong tradition of written psalm polyphony, mostly using the technique of falsobordone in which the chant was the highest of three or four voices. Polyphony might be used only in alternate verses (‘salmi a versi senza risposte’) or the psalm could be sung by two alternating polyphonic choirs (‘salmi a versi con le risposte’). Such settings rely heavily on root-position triads as the basis for recitation, although by the end of the century they were occasionally subjected to florid embellishment, as in collections entitled Salmi passeggiati or Falsobordoni concertati.
The use of two alternating choirs in psalm settings can be traced to Ferrara in the 1470s, whence comes a large manuscript Libro de canto da vespero (I-MOe αM.1, 11–12), containing double-choir psalms by Johannes Brebis and Johann Martini. This technique was cultivated in a more elaborate form in the 16th century in the double-choir psalms of Gasparo Alberti, Francesco Santa Croce, Jacquet of Mantua, Willaert and others. Their works were distinguished by the term ‘salmi spezzati’ (apparently first used by Aaron in 1536) and were in principle through-composed, permitting a more varied and flexible texture and layout rather than in falsobordone settings. The original psalm tones, largely preserved by Willaert, were generally abandoned by the native Italians, and the two four-part choirs began increasingly to depart from the verse structure of the psalm and to overlap or even combine into eight real parts, especially in the doxology. These techniques undoubtedly contributed to the rise of the polychoral motet in the second half of the 16th century, although the liturgical function of the Office psalms kept them a distinct category.
Polyphonic adornment of the Gregorian tones achieved only limited popularity in northern Europe. For example, in England before the Reformation faburden techniques were applied to the Magnificat and, on occasion, to certain processional psalms, but scarcely ever to the Office psalms. In Germany Georg Rhau published a collection of Vespers psalms (RISM 15405), in which the polyphony is for alternate verses, with the chant in the tenor. An earlier manuscript collection is in Jena (D-Ju 34). Several composers, including Johann Walter (i), Vulpius and Calvisius published polyphony of the falsobordone type for the German vernacular psalms in Luther's translation. After the English Reformation the Prayer Book psalms evidently continued to be sung to some form of the old Gregorian tones. Those for major feasts were occasionally set, with the chant in the tenor, to a harmonic formula adapted for each succeeding verse by the composer himself: the best-known of these ‘festal’ psalms are those in five parts by Tallis.
In some parts of northern Europe, metrical psalms in the vernacular became a central feature of religious life and worship from about 1520 onwards. One of the earliest and most important translations of the psalms was that by Clément Marot, which became the basis of the official Calvinist psalter. A repertory of tunes, to some extent international, was assembled or adapted from plainchant, secular and popular sources, with a small number that were probably newly composed. Polyphony was banned in Calvinist churches, so that many of the published polyphonic settings must have been intended for domestic devotions or recreation, and were sometimes advertised as ‘biens convenables aux instruments’. Many were in a simple chordal style, including Loys Bourgeois' influential Vingt-quatre psaumes à 4 voix (Lyons, 1547), and Goudimel's complete psalter of 1563, which achieved widespread recognition as a standard polyphonic version. Some collections included settings in a more contrapuntal or partially imitative texture, particularly those published in France where the Marot psalter was used by Catholic as well as Protestant communities. The more important were those of Certon (1546), Mornable (1546), Janequin (1548 and 1549) and the later publications of Bourgeois. A few composers, notably Claude Le Jeune (1564), dropped the tunes altogether and composed what amounted to free motet settings. At about the same time, studied contrapuntal treatments of the psalm tunes, probably for didactic use, began to appear in the tricinia of Lassus, Crecquillon and others.
Standing halfway between simple chordal harmonizations and motet style-settings are the graceful, chanson-like three-voice Souterliedekens of Clemens non Papa, published by Susato in 1556–7. They were the first polyphonic settings of all 150 psalms in Dutch, using metric versions of the texts attributed to Willem van Zuylen van Nivelt. Clemens used the popular tunes assigned to each psalm in the edition of Souterliedekens published in Antwerp in 1540 as cantus firmi in the tenor or superius.
Metrical psalms became widely popular in England after the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, partly through the agency of Protestants who had been exiled abroad during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor (1553–8). The standard metrical psalter was that of Sternhold and Hopkins, completed by 1562 and published in that year with 65 tunes taken from the Geneva psalter and other sources. A year later there appeared The Whole Psalmes in Foure Parts (RISM 15638) in which the same tunes were provided with simple harmonizations. Other metrical psalters also appeared, notably that of Archbishop Parker (1567), for which Tallis provided several harmonized tunes. Polyphonic collections later in the century included those of William Daman (1579), and an anthology of works by various composers published by Thomas East in 1592.
Se e also Psalms, metrical and Psalmody (ii).
The personal and symbolic qualities of many of the psalms made them especially attractive to 16th-century composers, who used them extensively as texts for the new repertory of motets evolved by Josquin and his contemporaries in about 1500. Over 20 such psalm motets carry attributions to Josquin, although some are surely imitations by German composers. These pieces show an apparently conscious attempt to match the musical speech as closely as possible to the rhythm and the expressive elements of the text (for example at the start of the secunda pars of Pseudo-Josquin's Dominus regnavit, Psalm xcii). A psalm tone cantus firmus was rarely used, and then only as an expressive element in itself. Many settings omit the doxology, and some composers treated the main texts with considerable freedom, for example by using extracts, assembling verses from different psalms and incorporating paraphrased or even non-biblical texts. These motet settings, therefore, cannot have been used as liturgical psalms: if sung in church at all, they must have served a votive or ceremonial function outside the formal liturgy.
The Netherlandish composers introduced and firmly established psalm setting in Italy, where it contributed to the wider motet repertories of Rome, Venice and most other major cities. The genre became especially significant in Germany, where it was cultivated by all the leading composers of Latin polyphony, as a result of the renewed interest in the psalms engendered by the Reformation. Thomas Stoltzer was one of the first to set both Latin and German psalm texts in motet form, and some later published collections mixed Latin and German settings, with little or no stylistic distinction between them. In France, Latin psalms were relatively neglected after Attaignant's anthology of 1535. English composers, however, took some interest in the third quarter of the 16th century. Some 70 settings survive, by Byrd, William Mundy, Robert White and others.
To trace the development of psalm composition during the 17th and 18th centuries is largely to trace the history of the motet and the anthem during the same period. The book of Psalms continued to provide the main source for Latin motet texts (as it had done before 1600), though the compositional techniques available to the composer now ranged from those associated with unaccompanied vocal polyphony to those of the latest concertato styles. The psalm settings of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610), Selva morale (1640) and Salmi a … voci concertati (1651) bring together elements of 16th-century choral polyphony, Venetian cori spezzati and the monodic style of the continuo madrigal; the Vespers apply both falsobordone and cantus firmus techniques to Gregorian psalm tones. It was a time of great activity in psalm composition, particularly in Venice and Rome; other composers include Francesco Cavalli, Tullio Cima, Simone Molinaro, Giovanni Rovetta and Lodovico Viadana. Both Salamone Rossi's Hebrew psalm settings Hashirim asher lish'lomo (1622–3) and some fragments, probably Venetian, from about 1630–50 indicate that in certain Italian Jewish circles polyphonic psalms had gained a foothold. The Spanish tradition of polyphonic psalm motets was carried over to the Americas and Hernando Franco in Mexico, Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla in Puebla and Juan de Araujo in Cuzco wrote elaborate polychoral psalm settings. In the late 18th century, José Angel Lamas composed psalm settings for chorus and orchestra for the cathedral in Caracas.
Later in the 17th century Alessandro Scarlatti's motets, most of which date from between 1680 and 1720, exemplify further both the ubiquity of psalm texts and the variety of their treatment. Of some 40 motets on biblical texts, all but three are settings of verses from the psalms, and the forces they require range from an unaccompanied four-part chorus (Exaltabo te Domine, Psalm xxx) or a chamber ensemble with solo voices (Diligam te Domine, Psalm xviii) to large-scale choral and string orchestral forces with solo voices and continuo (one of two settings of Nisi Dominus aedificaverit, Psalm cxxvii). Noteworthy is Scarlatti's frequent, and by this time archaic, use of Gregorian psalm tones as cantus firmi (often in long notes) in both stile antico and stile moderno settings. In the early 18th century Jan Dismas Zelenka contributed settings of the vespers psalms which form a coherent liturgical unit. The late 18th century saw a decline in the setting to music of complete psalms, although exceptions include Michael Haydn's Benedicite Dominum (Psalm ciii) and Laetatus sum (Psalm cxii), vespers settings by Fux, and Mozart's two cycles for Vespers, the Vesperae de Dominica k321 and the Vesperae sollemnes de confessore k339, in which the psalms and the Magnificat are treated as symphonic works (with a fugue as the fourth and an aria as the fifth psalm in each collection.
A reliance on psalm texts (though seldom to such an extent on psalm tones) is found in Latin motets by other 18th-century composers, both in Italy and elsewhere. The words of English anthems, too, are mostly from the book of Psalms, as a glance at the anthems of such composers as Pelham Humfrey, Blow and Purcell confirms. Three of Handel's Coronation Anthems and all 11 Chandos Anthems are settings of psalm texts, in either translation or paraphrase. The prevalence of binary structures in the ninth Chandos Anthem, O praise the Lord with one consent (a setting of verses from Psalms cxvii, cxxxv and cxlviii in the metrical version of Tate and Brady), illustrates the extent to which musical form in these works is determined by the tendency for each verse of a psalm to divide into two complementary statements. Psalm texts are much less important in the Lutheran church cantata, where the choral is a more fruitful source for both words and music. Most of Buxtehude's psalm settings, though called cantatas, are to Latin texts, and while Bach's cantatas contain frequent quotations from the psalms, only a few (e.g. Der Herr denket an uns bwv196) have texts drawn entirely from a single psalm. Probably the best known of Bach's psalm settings are the motets, Singet dem Herrn (bwv225) and Lobet den Herrn (bwv230).
While most psalm settings originated as separate pieces (chiefly motets and anthems) for specific church or ceremonial occasions, the practice of publishing collections of psalm compositions by a single composer also continued after 1600. Among the finest are the four volumes by Sweelinck comprising all 150 psalms (three of them set twice) in the French metrical versions of Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze, published in Amsterdam between 1603 and 1621. These take the form of unaccompanied motets for between three and eight voices, in most of which Sweelinck treated the appropriate melody from the Geneva psalter as a free cantus firmus. Schütz also set the complete psalter in the German metrical version of Cornelius Becker, but it was his more elaborate settings of some 26 psalms in Luther's version (Psalmen Davids, 1619) that established his reputation as the foremost German composer of church music. These are multi-choral works supported by continuo, and sometimes by other instruments also, in the tradition of Andrea Gabrieli's Psalmi Davidici (1583) and Viadana's Salmi … per cantare e concertare nella gran solennità di tutto l'anno (1612).
Later in the century G.B. Bassini issued the first of his five volumes of psalms, Armonici entusiasmi di David overo salmi concertati (Venice, 1690). In some of Bassini's psalms, especially perhaps the Salmi per tutto l'anno (1704) for double chorus and continuo, the stile antico continues to exert its influence, but others are stylistically closer to the chamber cantata. In the same tradition were the influential settings by Benedetto Marcello of the first 50 psalms in the Italian paraphrased version of G.A. Giustiniani, published under the title Estro poetico-armonico (Venice, 1724–6). Several other editions followed, and an English version by John Garth was published in London in 1757. An interesting feature of Marcello's settings is their use, as cantus firmi, of certain Jewish liturgical melodies dating from the 12th–14th centuries.
Despite the comprehensiveness of such volumes, certain psalms (e.g. c, cx, cxxx and cl) were favoured for elaborate musical setting, and this is even more marked after 1800. With the greater proliferation of public concerts in the 19th century and the decline of the church as a main focal point of compositional activity, the subsequent history of psalm composition is largely traced through isolated works written for concert use and scored for full orchestra and chorus, often with solo voices. Noteworthy examples of the genre are Mendelssohn's settings (in German) of Psalms xlii, xcv and cxiv, Schumann's of Psalm cl, Dvořák's of Psalm cxlix and Liszt's of Psalm xix. Bruckner represents what is perhaps the ultimate stage in this development by his large-scale settings of Psalms cxii and cl, though both he and Liszt, motivated by the spirit of 19th-century liturgical reforms, also wrote more modest devotional settings suitable for church use. Also more intimate in style (though designed for choral societies rather than for church choirs) are such settings as Schubert's, for women's voices and piano, of Psalm xxiii in the German version of Moses Mendelssohn, and Brahms's, for similar forces (with strings ad lib), of Psalm xiii. The second of Brahms's two motets op.29 is a setting of Psalm li. An echo of Bruckner's and Liszt's large-scale settings is found in Reger's monumental setting of Psalm c (1908–9) and in Elgar's Great is the Lord op.67 (Psalm xlviii, 1912).
Psalm settings in the 20th century include a substantial number of works intended primarily, though not exclusively, for church performance; in this category are settings by Ives, Distler, Britten, Hovhaness and Pärt. A second category consists of works clearly intended for the concert stage; among the most impressive of these are Kodály's Psalmus hungaricus (1923) and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (1930). The first is a setting of Psalm lv in the 16th-century paraphrased version of Mihály Kecskeméti Vég. It was written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the merging of Buda with Pest to form the Hungarian capital, and embodies nationalistic as well as religious feeling. Stravinsky selected the Latin text of his Symphony of Psalms from Psalms xxxix, xl and cl to form a logical progression from contrition to jubilation in a three-movement work scored for chorus and orchestra without upper strings. Also important are settings by Ginastera (Psalm cl, 1938), Lili Boulanger (Psalm cxxi, 1921) and Bloch (Psalms xxii and cxiv, both 1919), Gorecki's Sancti tui Domine (1993), Penderecki's Psalmy Dawida (using Psalms xxvii, xxx, xliii and cxliii, 1958) and Benedicamus Domino (Psalm cx, 1993), and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms (words from Psalms ii, xxiii, c, cviii and ccxxiii, 1965), set to the Hebrew text. Schoenberg found expression for his Jewish faith in De profundis (1949), a setting for six-part chorus of the Hebrew version of Psalm cxxx. His Moderner Psalm op.50c is an unfinished work in a projected series of religious compositions to words by Schoenberg himself.
Some of the best-known settings of verses from the psalms are contained in oratorios or other large-scale choral works, among them Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Brahms's German Requiem, Honegger's Le roi David and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast. Psalm texts have occasionally been used for solo songs with piano accompaniment, for example Dvořák's ten Biblické písně (‘Biblical songs’), Edmund Rubbra's settings of Psalms vi, xxiii and cl and Paul Creston's setting of Psalm xxiii, but such works are not common. Also rare are purely instrumental compositions based on, or inspired by, the psalms. Some 17th-century composers, including Sweelinck and Henderick Speuy, wrote keyboard pieces (mainly variations) on psalm melodies, and Julius Reubke's organ sonata Der 94. Psalm, Herbert Howell's Three Psalm Preludes (also for organ), David Diamond's Psalm for Orchestra (1936) and Justin Connolly's Anima (1975, an orchestral piece prefaced by the sixth verse of Psalm cxxiv, are among more recent examples; Penderecki's Psalmus (1961) is an electronic piece for tape.
See also Psalms, metrical and Anglican chant.
L. Ellinwood: ‘Tallis' Tunes and Tudor Psalmody’, MD, ii (1948), 1 89–203
G. d'Alessi: ‘Precursors of Adriano Willaert in the Practice of Coro Spezzato’, JAMS, v (1952), 187–210
L. Finscher: ‘Zur Cantus-Firmus-Behandlung in der Psalm-Motette der Josquinzeit’, Hans Albrecht in memoriam, ed. W. Brennecke and H. Haase (Kassel, 1962), 55–62
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A.F. Carver: ‘The Psalms of Willaert and his North Italian Contemporaries’, AcM, xlvii (1975), 270–83
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MGG1 (L. Finscher)
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K.L. Jennings: English Festal Psalms in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (diss., U. of Illinois, 1966)
A.-M. Bergin: The Salmi Concertati (1626) of Giovanni Rovetta: a Complete Transcription with a General Commentary (diss., Otago U., 1967)
M.D. Cordovana: An Analytical Survey and Evaluation of the ‘Estro poetico-armonico’ of Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739) (diss., Catholic U., Washington DC, 1967)
D. Hermany: ‘Anthems Based on Psalms’, Journal of Church Music, ix/10 (1967), 12–14; x/2 (1968), 12–13, 22; x/3 (1968), 12 only
C.R. Timms: A Transcription and Critical Study of Francesco Severi's ‘Salmi passeggiati’ (diss., U. of London, 1967)
D. Hermany: ‘Organ Music Based on Psalms’, Journal of Church Music, xi/3 (1969), 11–12
B. Newman: ‘Psalms in Concert’, Church Music, ii/32 [London] (1969), 13 only
V. Schultz: Choral Psalm-Settings of the 20th Century in the B.C.M. (diss., Kent State U., 1969)
S. Barwick: ‘A Recently Discovered Miserere of Fernando Franco’, YIAMR, vi (1970), 77–89
J.E. Schaffer: The Cantus Firmus in Alessandro Scarlatti's Motets (diss., George Peabody College, Nashville, TN 1970)
R. Leavis: ‘Bach's Setting of Psalm CXVII (BMV 230)’, ML, lii (1971), 19–26
J.M. Zimmerman: The Psalm Settings and Anthems of William Child (diss. Indiana U., 1971)
D. Arnold: ‘Schütz “Venetian” Psalms’, MT, cxiii (1972), 1071–3
J. Steele: ‘Dixit Dominus: Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel’, SMH, vii (1973), 19–27
M. Salevic: Die Vertonung der Psalmen Davids im 20 Jahrhundert (Regensburg, 1976)
K.G. Fellerer: ‘Zu Mozarts Kirchenmusik Vesperae solennes de confessore’, 26. Deutches Mozartfest: Mannheim 1977, ed. G. Valentin (Augsburg, 1977), 46–57
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J. Moore: Vespers at St. Marks, 1625–1675: Music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Rovetta, and Francesco Cavalli (Michigan, 1981)
J. Moore: ‘The Vespro delle cinque laudate and the Role of Salmi Spezzati at St. Mark's,’JAMS, xxxiv (1981), 249–78
J. Moore: ‘Venezia favorita da Maria: Music for the Madonna Nicopeia and Santa Maria della Salute’, JAMS, xxxvii (1984), 299–355
M. Marx-Weber: ‘Römische Vertonungen des Psalms ‘Miserere’ um 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert’, HJbMw, viii (1985), 7–43
D. Harrán: ‘Salomone Rossi, Jewish Musician in Renaissance Italy’, AcM, lix (1987), 46–64
M. Marx-Weber: ‘Domenico Scarlattis Miserere-Vertonungen für die Cappella Giulia in Rom’, Alte Musik als ästhetische Gegenwart, ii (1987), 130–37
R. Walter: ‘Die Vesperae seu psalmi vespertini pro toto anno, opus III von Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer’, J.C.G. Fischer in seiner Zeit: Rastatt 1988, 111–21
R. Robinson: ‘The Opus ultimum: Heinrich Schutz's Artistic and Spiritual Testament’, Five Centuries of Choral Music: Essays in honour of Howard Swan (Stuyvesant, NY, 1988), 217–32
C. Garcia Muñoz: Juan de Araujo, un compositor del período colonial hispano-americano (diss., U. Católica Argentina, 1989)
S. Girard: ‘Two Vesper Psalms and some Questions of Revision and Process in 15th Century Improvised Polyphony’, Ars musica Denver, i (1989), 26–8
T. Thomas: The Music of Juan Navarro Based on Pre-existent Musical Materials (diss., U. of Texas, 1990)
P. Pidoux: ‘La Genève de Calvin et le chant des psaumes’, Revue musicale de la Suisse Romande, xliv (1991), 139–59
J. Lowe: The Psalm Settings of Marc-Antoine Charpentier (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1992)
P. Zappala: I salmi di Felix mendelssohn Bartholdy (diss., U. of Pavia, 1992)
W. Dinglinger: Studien zu den Psalmen mit Orchester von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (Cologne, 1993)
J. Floreen: ‘Zelenka's Psalmvertonungen: Formale Konzepte und Satztechnik’, Musik des Ostens, xiv (1993), 241–52
T.R. King: The Sacred Choral Music of Alberto Ginastera (diss., U. of Illinois, 1993)
H. Krones: ‘Psalmenvertonungstraditionen in Leonard Bernsteins Chichester Psalms’, Studien zur Wertungsforschung, xxvii (1994), 91–112
J. Lionnet: ‘Le répertoire des vêpres papales’, Collectanea II: Studien zur Geschichte der päpstlichen Kapelle, ed. B. Janz (Rome, 1994), 225–48
B. Nelson: ‘Alternatim Practice in 17th Century Spain: the Integration of Organ Versets and Plainchant in Psalms and Canticles’, EMc, xxii (1994), 239–56
J. Sockigt: The Vesper Psalms of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) in the Liturgy and Life of the Dresden Catholic Court Church (diss., U. of Melbourne, 1994)
D. Berke: ‘Franz Schubert's Vertonung des 92. Psalms in hebräischer Sprache (D. 953): eine quellenkritische Miszelle’, Studien zur Musikgeschichte: Festschrift für Ludwig Finscher (Kassel, 1995), 530–38
K. Duffy: The Jena Choirbooks: Music and Liturgy at the Castle Church in Wittenberg under Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony (diss., U. of Chicago, 1995)
T. Hochradner: ‘Eine Vesper von Fux: eine merkwürdige Überlieferung aus dem Burgenland und die Ergebnisse weiterer Nachforschungen’, Pannonische Forschungsstelle Oberschützen, vi (1995), 117–31
H.J. Marx: ‘Ein Vesper-Zyklus Alessandro Scarlattis für die Chiesa S. Cecilia in Rom’, Studien zur Musikgeschichte: Festschrift für Ludwig Finscher (Kassel, 1995), 197–205
R. Stephan: ‘Alexander Zemlinskys Psalmkompositionen in ihrer Zeit’, Alexander Zemlinsky: Ästhetik, Stil und Umfeld (1995), 67–78
For further bibliography see Psalms, metrical.