About The Saint Michael’s Psalter

Without question, the Psalms of David (or whoever actually composed and compiled them) are the oldest known Judeo-Christian and Islamic musical verses. For the Islamic world, the holy book of Zabur, which was supposedly revealed by God before the Holy Quran, is essentially the Psalms of David (Dawud).

And your Lord is most knowing of whoever is in the heavens and the earth. And We have made some of the prophets exceed others [in various ways], and to David We gave the Zabur. (Al-Israa’ 17:55)

These musical verses reveal a very broad image of the relationship between God and humankind. They show the full gamut of God’s emotions: loving, peaceful, healing, compassionate, and in contrast, judgmental, angry, ignoring, vengeful, and destructive. The psalmist gets to display his own range of emotions: penitent, joyful, prodigious, obedient, supplicant, sad, gloomy, despairing, and hopeful. In truth, we have a glimpse into the human psyche at a very primitive point in time. Yet, despite the passing of a few millennia, we can still connect to these great depths of emotions. Ultimately, these texts have all the ingredients for a great drama. Musically, they should be rendered in a way that connects us to those depths whether we’re crying from the pits of despair or offering a festal shout from the mountain top.

A couple of decades ago, I began composing my own Anglican chants – not due to the lack of existing chants, but to offer my own harmonic language, which is deeply rooted in jazz and other American roots music. I find that virtually all of the psalms have a natural yin/yang aspect to them. They ebb and flow between positive/negative, call/response, I cried/you heard, cause/effect, and so forth. There is always a sense of God and humankind duality. With jazz harmony, I find even the most dissonant chord can paint both the yin and the yang aspects of an idea, and that breaking the standard rules of 4-part chorale writing (i.e., using parallel 4ths, 5ths, odd melodic leaps, etc.) to be very effective in creating striking moments that bring to life the emotional gravity of the texts. It is an exercise in minimalism to create a mere fourteen measures of music that can sustain not only the depth and emotional content of the texts, but also manage to keep the attention of the singers and listeners.

While I’ve composed chants for many years, my psalter really came to light during my sabbatical in 2015 when I made a concerted effort to compose as many original chants as possible. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced all of us into an extended time of quarantine and provided another opportunity to live with these texts, compose, and further edit. There are approximately 80 original chants divided across 150 psalms. I found that the themes for some psalms were so similar, that a single chant could paint two psalms equally well.

There were several things to take into consideration in creating this psalter. Which translation of the texts do I use? Do I strictly use the language of the Book of Common Prayer? Do I set the entire book of Psalms, or just create a liturgical psalter?

I chose to use the Psalter of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) because it is probably the most commonly used here in the States. The BCP Psalter still uses the small-caps “Lord” vs “Lord” to acknowledge an older rabbinic tradition of how God is to be (or not to be) named. It may be somewhat antiquated to do so, but I’ve kept this aspect as it follows the BCP standard for reverential capitalization.

While it is uncommon in the United States to find parishes who sing the Psalms daily, in order to complete the entirety of the Psalter every 30 days, I decided that I would endeavor to set the entire book. I’ve included the Gloria Patri as a means of convenience for all the psalms, with the exceptions being the more voluminous psalms like 119, where the Gloria Patri aligns with the final verses assigned to either morning or evening services.

This psalter is a labor of love and is dedicated to my wife, Kathleen, my children Maryn and Saoirse, and to the amazing people of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is truly one of the most diverse and spiritually rich parishes I’ve ever served. There are additional individual dedications throughout the psalter to dear friends and colleagues.

To quote one of my editors, “These chant settings are not for the faint of heart.” To that
I would say, neither are the Psalms. Many of these settings are not easy, but I hope you find great spiritual and musical reward in learning and performing these settings of our richest source of sacred lyrics.

John Edward Cantrell
February 21st, 2021