Psalm 30 • I will praise You, Lord

Here I present to you my latest psalm setting, Psalm 30, whose refrain states:

“I will praise You, Lord, for You have rescued me.”

Continuing with my recent theme of composing new psalm settings based on corresponding traditional chants, the melody of the refrain is derived from the gradual Exaltabo te, Domine.

This one proved a little tricky to adapt this way, but in the end the result is quite nice. While the harmonic language is a bit on the unusual side, it has its own charm.

Watch the video below to hear various renditions of this work: melody only, melody with SATB verses, melody & alto together (this makes for a lovely duet!), or alto, tenor, and bass solo parts (for practice).

NB: the incipit sung at the beginning of the video is the beginning and ending of the gradual (ending just prior to the versicle), hence the ellipses. (See image above.)

Footnote: the hawk-eyed among you may realize that there is one phrase missing from the second verse in the rendition above. There was indeed an oversight on my part at the time of production since that verse has an extra line of text relative to the others. The score has been updated to include the whole text, although I’ve decided not to re-record the entire psalm and edit a new video at this time.