Psalm Offering 1 Opus 7 was composed in the summer of 2017. Opus 7 is subtitled “The Lamentation Psalm Offerings.” The text of the Book of Lamentations is the underlying inspiration for the music. Psalm Offering 1 is dedicated to the human victims of violence.
See, O Lord, how distressed I am; my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death. Those who were my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird; they flung me alive into a pit and hurled stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, “I am lost.” (Lamentations 1:20, 4:52-54)
This song is my anguished prayer to God for all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends whose hearts have been crushed by the cruel acts of violence against their loved ones. In Isaiah, chapter two, we hear the prophet speak of turning spears into pruning hooks, and swords into plowshares. The time has come for all weapons to be destroyed. May all the materials that create a weapon be melted into a molten mass never to be used for any other purpose than to be buried into the earth.
Whom better the victim of merciless death at the hands of humans than Jesus? Jesus, the Word of God, was tortured and executed without any remorse by those whom He had created.
However, St Paul in his 1st letter to the Corinthians points to the folly of the human wisdom that thought that killing the Author of Life would be a victory.
¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
A second image upon which to dwell is the dead, torn, brutalized body of Jesus held in the arms of his mother. The image of a mother mourning over the lifeless body of her son was captured tragically and poetically by Michelangelo.
“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 3:18)
Two images lay behind the composing of the music of the song, 1) the brutal death of Christ, symbolic of all the violence humanity has inflicted upon humanity; and, 2) a mother’s heart and soul crushed at the death of her child by that violence, symbolized by the image of Mary holding the lifeless body of her son.
The music inserted below does not bear any beautiful sounds. The first theme is brutal, harsh, dissonant cluster chords pounded on the keyboard. The second theme, is a lacrymosa, the lament of a mother over her dead child. The stark brutality of the first theme juxtaposed with the lament of the second theme.
After the first theme has been fully stated, it is followed by the second theme. Then a battle between the two themes begin. The first theme of brutal violence seemingly trying to dominate the lament of the second theme, with the lament finally winning over the violence.
