Report – ‘Inside the Psalms’ – with Andrew Reid
St Gregory’s Church, Northampton 20 May 2014
Helen Murphy introducing Andrew Reid
(Photo: Jane Porter)
‘Inside the Psalms’ was organised jointly by the Music Section of the Diocesan Liturgy
Commission and the local RSCM Area Committee. It turned out to be a very ecumenical
event, with well over 50 participants from local Catholic and Anglican churches. The speaker
was Andrew Reid, an Anglican and former Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral, who
had also previously worked as Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral; what is
more, he told us that he had recently founded a Children’s Choir at a Catholic parish in
Peterborough, alongside his latest appointment as Director of the RSCM.
Andrew explained the origins of the psalms, their use and significance in Old Testament
worship, whether in the local synagogue or in the Temple in Jerusalem, and how they were
sung in monody. In New Testament times, the early Christians would have sung what they
were familiar with, and so these chants grew and eventually developed into the plainsong
tones that became ubiquitous throughout Western Christendom until the time of the
Reformation. The reformers, too, greatly valued the psalms and explored ways of singing
them in the vernacular – whether in metrical versions (very popular in Scotland) or in what
came to be known as Anglican chant (with its early origins in a simple plainsong line, filled
out with harmonies), or even in the many well-known hymns based on psalms –
paraphrases rather than translations. More recently, he noted the advent of the responsorial
psalm, using a different type of translation that has attempted to reflect the poetic origins of
the psalms. These texts by The Grail, whilst not exactly metric, have a rhythmic quality quite
unlike the free prose used in traditional plainsong and Anglican chant (whether in Latin or
English).
Andrew’s insight into the psalms and the different ways of singing them was based on a
wide range of experience and a deep love of their beauty and significance. In a couple of
hours, part lecture, part workshop, we were guided through many different psalms . Some
were familiar, eg a selection of settings of Ps 23, and Bernadette Farrell’s O God you search
me, based on Ps 139. Others, such as Pitoni’s Laudate Dominum (Ps 149) and Colin
Mawby’s Praise God in his holy place (Ps 130) resounded with the help of our proficient
visitors, whose confidence and experience of singing in four-part harmony was extremely
useful! The evening concluded with Andrew’s own beautiful setting of Ps 88, a responsorial
psalm written for the Chrism Mass. The success of this combined venture bodes well for the
future and we look forward to more jointly organised events next year.