Greetings all,
I'd like to share my most recent psalm setting and talk a little bit about how it came to be. This coming week is the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) which calls for Psalm 92 "Lord, it is good to give thanks to You."

Since it is the music of the Roman Rite, I've sought to have increasing recourse to chant in the liturgy—this includes singing it outright in Latin & the vernacular, as well as using it as inspiration for new compositions. The last few months have seen a number of very nice (I'm told) psalm settings which are very chant-like. My choir noticed the change and even remarked so; they've also stated that they prefer this new style. I consider this very telling since the general tenor of the group is not particularly "trad" oriented. Sympathetic perhaps, but not oriented. But I digress...

What changed:

For starters, I've taken to notating many things in free meter with reciting tones. This includes what I put in the worship aids for the congregation; I use black stemless notes for "short" values and white stemless notes for "long" (an approximate doubling). What I've discovered is that people more naturally follow the rhythm of the text (à la office psalm tones) than if you use modern mensural notation. This is a huge bonus and rightly puts the emphasis back on the text as opposed to the music. Sometimes I even construct the accompaniment without stems as well. It takes a wee bit for people to orient themselves to this style of notation, but once they do we don't have any issues.

While I frequently set the verses à la anglican chant, I've also started incorporating traditional psalm tones from time to time, with men and women singing antiphonally (which we also do during vernacular propers as well). This really lends a monastic feel to the liturgy which is very welcome.

I've also done other things like look to original gradual & alleluia chants to see how they could be adapted. In the past I've adapted various gregorian alleluias for use within the novus ordo repeated for a few weeks at a time (such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL9hyFRPwKM) And I will also be sharing later a triple alleluia that I've arranged based on the tonus peregrinus.

This week's psalm, in particular, adapted from the original gradual exceptionally well, hence my desire to share it here. I was able to retain a majority of the original notes to make the new setting.

I've just recently launched my new website & blog PsalliteDomino.com which will deal with all sorts of things Catholic but with a primary emphasis on liturgical music. I talk more about the whole process there for anyone who is interested: https://www.psallitedomino.com/blog/drawing-on-plainchant And here is a link where I discuss another psalm where I took the same approach: https://www.psallitedomino.com/serviamscores/a-refreshed-approach-to-modern-psalmody

Here's a link to a youtube video so you can hear it: https://youtu.be/wGrTvyb4-cI

I hope you enjoy it, and if any of you finding it this week want to use it on Sunday, please feel welcome do so.