Symphony of Psalms

Exaudi orationem meam…

Expectans expectavi…

Alleluia - Laudate Eum…

The Symphony of Psalms - together with more or less distinguished scores by Copland, Hindemith, Honegger, Prokofiev, Respighi and Roussel - was a product of an ambitious project planned by Serge Koussevitsky to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Although he was advised to write “something popular” for orchestra without chorus, Stravinsky insisted on composing a psalm symphony he had had in mind for some time. If it was as a concession that he chose Psalm 150 “for its popularity” it was also, as he said, “to counter the many composers who had abused these magisterial verses as pegs for their own lyrico-sentimental feelings.”

Stravinsky’s avoidance of the “lyrico-sentimental,” had he been tempted to indulge in such a thing, does not imply any lack of religious feeling on his part. He had been a regular communicant of the Orthodox Church since 1926 and when he started work on the psalms, in Nice in January 1930, his first instinct was to set the texts in Slavonic. It was only later that he switched to the Latin of the Vulgate, which would make the work more accessible while retaining the impersonal and hieratic effect of a dead language. The scoring, which excludes clarinets and upper strings but includes two pianos, is calculated to the same effect. “Composed to the glory of God and dedicated to the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its existence,” the Symphony of Psalms was actually first performed in Brussels under the direction of Ernest Ansermet on 13 December 1930. Koussevitsky conducted its first Boston performance six days later.

The first movement (based on verses 13 and 14 of Psalm 38 in the Vulgate, corresponding to verses 12 and 13 of Psalm 39 in the King James Version) was written, according to the composer, “in a state of religious and musical ebullience.” This did not stop him thinking in the long term and anticipating, in the instrumental introduction and the ostinato accompaniment to the chorus, the major and minor thirds which he already knew would be a prominent feature of the last movement. The vocal line is at first confined to plaintive minor seconds but gradually opens out to reach a climax on “Ne sileas,” which is only the first of several reminders in this work of the distinctive sound of Oedipus Rex. Although the tonality is apparently held in E minor by the percussive chords that punctuate the setting, the last lines lift it to F and then G major.

Stravinsky described the second movement (based on verses 2, 3 and 4 of Psalm 39 in the Vulgate, corresponding to verses 1, 2 and 3 of Psalm 40 in the King James version) as an “upside-down pyramid of fugues.” In fact, it is a highly wrought double fugue, starting at the top with a complex four-part fugue in C minor on a subject bristling with thirds for flutes and oboes. The texture broadens out in the middle in a four-part choral fugue in E flat major with a (still contrapuntal) instrumental accompaniment. After a short a capella passage and an orchestral stretto, the two fugues are united, though much altered, to form the elaborately constructed foundation of the pyramid.

The last movement is a setting of all but one line of Psalm 150 (same number in the Vulgate and the King James Version). The fast-tempo section, beginning on horns and bassoons with the peremptory six-note monotone derived from the rhythm of the words “Laudate Dominum,” was the first part of the work to be written. The opening Alleluia, Stravinsky explained, he could not compose until he had written the second movement: “Psalm 40 is a prayer that a new canticle may be put into our mouths. The Alleluia is that canticle.”

The fast section - with its major and minor thirds on harp and trumpet and an orchestral tarantella echoing Jocasta’s music in Oedipus Rex though apparently inspired by “a vision of Elijah’s chariot climbing the heavens” - is interrupted by a brief recall of the Alleluia. After restoring the tempo of the opening “canticle,”Stravinsky slows it down at “Laudate Eum in cymbalis” for a devoutly sustained melody rising and falling through the interval of a minor third. The final echo of the Alleluia is not only, as Stravinsky described it, the “apotheosis” of the work but also the realisation of its long-term tendency towards C major.