Benedicat tibi Dominus ex Sion (Psalm 128)

This week calls for psalm 128(127) “May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.” The lectionary derives the refrain from the second half of verse 5: “May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosper all the days of your life! ”

As usual, my starting point was to reference the vulgate translation of this verse, which begins, “Benedicat tibi Dominus ex Sion…”

This week I was blessed with not one, but with two excellent source manuscripts for this verse. Unfortunately, these books (along with a few others) only set the first half of the verse, which seemed to be used as a common antiphon/refrain due to its rather generic formula of blessing, however it seems to me wholly appropriate to nevertheless base my new psalm setting from this ancient melody. With careful study, you’ll notice that these manuscripts match:

Cistercian antiphonal from the Mosterio de Santa Maria in Arouca, Portugal. c. 1200.
To view the full folio, click here.

Cistercian antiphonal from the Abbey of Salzinnes, Namur, in the Diocese of Liège, France.
Completed between 1554 and 1555. To view the full folio, click here.

What I find astonishing is that these two manuscripts come from geographically diverse areas and are three-and-a-half centuries apart, and yet the chant is identical. It certainly helps that by the year of our Lord, 1200, we had clear notation superimposed upon staff lines, so pitches could be transmitted exactly; that said: anyone who has spent any amount of time trawling through ancient chant manuscripts can quickly confirm that there tends to be a tremendous amount of variety between manuscripts. (Some might call these variations clerical [heh, no pun intended!] “errors.” 🤫) In this case, both manuscripts are of Cistercian origin, so it’s not surprising they are identical.

Variety in chant is one of the main reasons that Pius X commissioned the monks of the Abbey of Solesmes to “restore” authentic and “pure” melodies. i.e.—find the lowest common denominator between the most important manuscripts. Whether or not this was ultimately a good thing is a discussion for another day. (It should be noted that Charles Marie Widor famously decried the suppression of Gallican chant in France, for instance.) Considering the multiple rites of the church, perhaps we could have legitimately retained various chant traditions as well. †1

But I digress…

At last we come to my adaptation, which, while not as suave as some of the others that I’ve shared previously, is still satisfactory:

First things first: the refrain is obviously derived from the Cistercian melody shown above. It is not 1:1, but it is largely faithful to the original. The verses are derived from the formula for the Gloria Patri which would ordinarily follow antiphon (for those new to chant, that is the series of squares above the letters “E U O U A E” which is a formula that dictates how you sing the following syllables at the end of the Gloria: “et in saEcula, secU-lO-rUm Am-En.”)

The number of syllables between the Latin and English verses do not quite match, which forced some hard decisions where the refrain was concerned. For instance, in order to keep the harmonic sense of second phrase of our model, I felt that I could not drop any of the original notes; but this necessitated lengthening the word “days” which I would have rather preferred not to do; the original neume groupings are in twos, not four. In the first phrase, by contrast, I decided to ignore the highest note (the “Do” of “Dominus” †2) to make it more easily singable by congregations. I’ve also learned that making things too florid does not suit most congregations well.

Doing these adaptations is always a study in compositional compromise. The result is not perfect, but still an improvement over many of the banal settings on the market today. Again, I reiterate my determination to base psalm settings as much on ancient chant as possible, to keep with Pius X’s decree that the more that liturgical music approaches in its form and savor the gregorian form, the better.

†1 Those who frequent chant circles will undoubtedly be quick to point out that Dominican chant (as an œuvre) still exists within the church today. Some might even call upon Sarum chant as well, although this deserves a special discussion. My point above is essentially that: while it is great that we have official Vatican/Roman chant melodies which are promulgated for universal use, perhaps it would be better if there were other “official” options with universal promulgation as well. As I said, Dominican chant (which is gregorian in nature, but simplified to a degree) seems to receive little pushback.

†2 Note that “Dominus” is written in shorthand “dñs” which is very common. Similarly, in the older manuscript “Jerusalem” is written as “ierusalé”.