Psalm 1: verse 1

Psalm 1: verse 1 (2012)

for SATB choir (with optional percussion)

Duration: c. 3 minutes

Hebrew text: ashrei-ha’ish asher lo halakh ba’atzat resha’im

Latin text: Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum

Translation: Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly

Background

This choral work was originally written for a production of the silent film Salomé, made in 1923 and starring the Russian actress Nazimova. Like the opera by Richard Strauss, the film is based on the play by Oscar Wilde. As some of Wilde’s words feature as intertitles in the (silent) film, I decided to look for alternative texts. The texts for the vocal music are mainly taken from the Psalms, generally ascribed to King David, and sung in Hebrew and Latin.

The composition is based on the fixed rhythmic patterns found in early Arabic music, many in unusual time units such as 7, 10, 13 or 19. Sometimes these time signatures were palindromic – as in this work, for example, a unit of 10 would be made up of 3 + 2 and its mirror 2 + 3.