Symphony of Psalms

Igor Stravinsky became a practicing Christian in the mid-1920s. His spiritual transformation culminated in 1926, when he formally rejoined the Russian Orthodox Church, in which he had grown up.

Some musicologists have offered some probable links between Stravinsky’s revived religiousness and his evolving musical style. An immediate and obvious connection is the appearance of religious subjects in his music. In 1926, he set The Lord’s Prayer in Old Church Slavonic (Otche nash) for a cappella chorus; he would later adapt it to the Latin translation (Pater noster) in 1949. In the 1930s, he wrote two more liturgical pieces to Old Church Slavonic texts: the Simbol’vyeri (Credo) and the Bogoroditse d’vo (Ave Maria).

During the same years, Stravinsky composed the Symphony of Psalms, the first of many large-scale compositions on sacred texts. He had received a commission for a symphony from Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but at that point had little interest in symphonies in the traditional form. In his autobiography, he recalled the successive steps in which his thoughts took shape:

My idea was that my symphony should be a work with great contrapuntal development, and for that it was necessary to increase the media at my disposal. I finally decided on a choral and instrumental ensemble in which the two elements should be on an equal footing, neither of them outweighing the other. ... I sought for my words ... among those which had been written for singing. And quite naturally my first idea was to have recourse to the Psalms.

The verses chosen by Stravinsky represent some of the principal types of psalms. The three movements of the symphony — played without pauses — are in turn a prayer, a song of salvation, and a song of praise, taken from the 38th, the 39th, and the 150th Psalms. (These numbers are from those of the Vulgate, the Latin translation Stravinsky used.)

In the Symphony of Psalms, emotional intensity is achieved without a trace of sentimentality. Stravinsky used simple means like modified triads, single intervals, and elementary rhythmic patterns. (His orchestra is also built on darker instrumental colors, omitting clarinets from the woodwind section and violins and violas from the string section.) The entire first movement is based on a striking E-minor chord, and a simple melody consisting solely of two notes: E and its upper neighbor, F. Musically speaking, the movement could be described as a progression from this yearning musical world toward the luminous G-major chord at the end, which is underscored by a continuous crescendo in the orchestra.

The second movement is a double fugue between the orchestra and chorus. In Stravinsky’s words:

The “Waiting for the Lord” Psalm makes the most overt use of musical symbolism in any of my music before The Flood [1962]. An upside-down pyramid of fugues, it begins with a purely instrumental fugue of limited compass and employs only solo instruments. ... The next and higher stage of the upside-down pyramid is the human fugue, which ... also represents a higher level in the architectural symbolism by the fact that it expands into the bass register. The third stage, the upside-down foundation, unites the two fugues.

The last movement has alternating slow and fast tempos. The word “Alleluia” is sung to harmonies that, like the E-minor chord in the first movement, consist of traditional patterns modified ever so slightly to sound completely new. The fast tempo is based on typical Stravinskian ostinatos. Of this, the composer wrote: “The allegro in the 150th Psalm was inspired by a vision of Elijah’s chariot climbing the heavens; I do not think I had ever written anything so literal as the triplets for horns and piano to suggest the horses and chariot.”

The end of the movement returns to a slow tempo, and the opening “Alleluia” theme is expanded into a serene hymn which is unexpectedly deflected into a new key. The last sonority is an otherworldly C major that again has something unusual about it: the C is sounded in six different octaves, with its fifth, the G, vibrating along as a natural overtone. The E, however, the pitch that makes the chord complete, hovers in the uppermost register, played ethereally by flutes, oboes, harp, and piano.

— Peter Laki

Peter Laki is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music. He is a visiting associate professor of music, emeritus, at Bard College and was The Cleveland Orchestra’s program annotator from 1990 to 2007

Sung Texts

I. Psalm 38

CHORUS 
Exaudi orationem meam, Domine, 
et deprecationem meam: 
auribus percipe lacrymas meas. 
Ne sileas, quoniam advena ego apud te, 
et peregrinus, sicut omnes patres mei. 
Remitte mihi, ut refrigerer priusque abeam, 
et amplius non ero. 

Hear my prayer, O Lord, 
and my supplication: 
give ear to my tears. 
Be not silent: for I am a stranger with You, 
and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. 
O spare me, that I may be refreshed 
before I go forth, and be no more. 

II. Psalm 39

CHORUS 
Exspectans expectavi Dominum 
et intendit mihi. 
Et exaudivit preces meas; 
et eduxit me de lacu miseriae, 
et de luto faecis. 
Et statuis supra petram pedes meos; 
et direxit gressus meos. 
Et immisit in os meum canticum novum, 
carmen Deo nostro. 
Videbunt multi et timebunt, 
et sperabunt in Domino. 

Patiently I have waited for the Lord 
and He was attentive to me. 
And He heard my prayers; 
and brought me out of the pit of misery, 
and the mire of dregs. 
And he set my feet upon a rock; 
and directed my steps. 
And he put a new canticle into my mouth, 
a song to our God. 
Many shall see, and shall fear, 
and they shall hope in the Lord. 

III. Psalm 150

CHORUS 
Alleluia. 
Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus; 
laudate eum in fi rmamento virtutis ejus. 
Laudate eum in virtutibus ejus; 
laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis ejus. 
Laudate eum in sono tubae … 
Laudate eum in tympano et choro; 
laudate eum in chordis et organo. 
Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus; 
laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis. 
Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum!  
Alleluia. 

Alleluia. 
Praise the Lord in His holy places; 
praise Him in the firmament of His power. 
Praise Him for His mighty acts; 
praise Him according to the multitude of His greatness. 
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet … 
Praise Him with timbrel and dance; 
praise Him with strings and organs. 
Praise Him on high-sounding cymbals; 
praise Him on cymbals of joy. 
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!  
Alleluia.