Psalm Offering 4 Opus 2, like quite a few of the Psalm Offerings from Opus 2, began as musical sketches written in 1973 and later revised and/or rewritten in 1986. It was during the summer that I “re-composed” Psalm Offering 4. I was taking my Church Social Justice class at the St. Paul Seminary with Fr. Sean O’Rearden, and, had just finished reading the massive ode written by the late Penny Lernoux entitled “People of God,” which described the courageous faith life of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan peasantry, many of whom lost their lives to the Right Wing Oligarchs of those countries. Archbishop Oscar Romero, along with Cardinal Arns, Bishop Helder Camara and other bishops who constantly faced threats of martyrdom at the hands of the same butchers who were disappearing people of faith. Archbishop Romero was the beloved shepherd of his sheep and willingly gave his life, like that of the Good Shepherd, for his flock. It is to him, and to the many untold and unnamed martyrs of El Salvador that this Psalm Offering is dedicated.
As to the music itself, it is written in a minor key. Note how the beginning measures and the ending measures are essentially the same, bookending, as it were, the music. The primary melody is introduced, and then repeated, with a development of the triplet figure as a bridge to the secondary melody which quickly evolves back into the triplet figure bringing the music to a recapitulation of the primary melody.
If listeners have not noticed it by now, I have a great fondness for the open, sounding diads of the Perfect 4th and the Perfect 5th. When studying music history as an undergraduate, I was drawn to the harmonies that made up the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The major triad (chord) had not been yet discovered, in fact, the major chord was looked upon as a kind of dissonance. The preferred/acceptable harmonies of that period of music were octaves, Perfect 4ths and Perfect 5ths. I find this sort of harmony very appealing and can only surmise that it is a result of my musical gene pool inherited by my great grandpap Marron, who was an Irish Traditional musician. Much of Irish Traditional music closely resembles the song structures and harmonies of Medieval music which might explain its appeal to me.
