TWO FREE BILINGUAL PSALMS
In my capacity as director of music for a cathedral, it’s not uncommon that I’m tasked with planning bilingual English/Spanish liturgies. As is the case for many places in the USA, we have a very significant Hispanic population within our diocese, and it is growing steadily.
That said, there seems to be a paucity of nice psalm settings in Spanish which are suitable for use with organ. (A notable exception being those of Marc Cerisier, available at the CRCCM Repertoire page.) Worse still, robust bilingual psalm settings are rare as unicorns. So with that stated, I’d like to share two recent attempts of my own to solve this problem.
I have found that the demands of each language are best served by a melody comprised of simple contours, à la psalm tones. (Admittedly, specific antiphons can work well together on a case-by-case basis, but sometimes there is a large disparity in the number of syllables of each language, which prevent more intricate melodies from melding equally well to each translation. Simple contours offer the most flexibility and are the most forgiving.)
Having just completed three bilingual liturgies in the last two weekends, I can say with confidence that these settings are successful. To help, and since we use worship aids, instructions were added which specify that each refrain is to be sung in the same language as the preceding verse. Small bold/italic guides at the end of each verse have also helped to clarify what comes next:
I should take a moment to briefly address the issue of how to properly introduce the refrain at the beginning; my own chosen method was to simply demo it in a single language. I resisted the temptation to sing it in both languages at the beginning since this would interrupt the normal [expected] flow of the Psalm, and possibly set the unintended expectation that the refrain would be sung in both languages each time it reoccurs. If your cantor demo and the first verse are in English, this means that the Spanish version must be sung “cold” after verse two. Admittedly, this first time through will not be as strong as the second time after verse 4, but it seemed the simpler way to go about it. Bilingual liturgies have inherent defects, and it would seem that attempting to sing the psalm in two languages merely demonstrates this further. I will offer no further thoughts on the merits or defects bilingual liturgies in this post.
So the full sequence (as conceived) is:
Organ introduction
Cantor demo (in English) with all repeating (in English)
English Verse, English refrain
Spanish Verse, Spanish refrain, etc.
The first setting is the ubiquitous Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” In this edition, I wrote the verses out fully, but this does have the effect of forcing your hand in terms of which verses are in English or Spanish, which may or may not be ideal. Some parishes may benefit from the primary emphasis being on the Spanish. Depending on the response to this post, I may or may not re-engrave this psalm with pointed text for maximum flexibility.
UPDATE:
Click HERE for a second version of the score which features pointed text.
The second setting is Psalm 34(33), “The Lord delivered me from all my fears.”
Unlike the previous edition, I decided to offer the verses as pointed text, to maximize the flexibility of the arrangement. Strictly speaking, with this method, the psalm could be sung entirely in a single language, if desired. I will retain this approach going forward because this permits a certain integration at parishes where masses are not bilingual, but there is a “Mass in English” and “Mass in Spanish”. Arrangements such as this would still foster a certain liturgical unity, permitting each community to sing the same psalm to the same music, albeit in their own language.
Please do let me know if these arrangements are helpful to you, and what other ideas you may have for improving this concept. I would be grateful to hear from you.
Pax,
James
