Psalom

The instrumental miniature Psalom was initially composed as two-part music without specific instrumentation and was completed on the composer’s 50th birthday in 1985. Arvo Pärt revisited the sketches in 1991, when Universal Edition commissioned a piece for string quartet for the upcoming 90th birthday of its long-time leader, Alfred Schlee. Pärt had not composed in this genre since 1959, when he created a piece for string quartet as a student. The composition is dedicated to Alfred Schlee and was premiered by Arditti Quartet on November 1991 at the Konzerthaus Vienna at Schlee’s 90th birthday concert as part of the Wien Modern festival.

Another version of the work, composed in 1995 for string orchestra, was premiered in April 1995 by Kammerorchester Unter den Linden c…

The instrumental miniature Psalom was initially composed as two-part music without specific instrumentation and was completed on the composer’s 50th birthday in 1985. Arvo Pärt revisited the sketches in 1991, when Universal Edition commissioned a piece for string quartet for the upcoming 90th birthday of its long-time leader, Alfred Schlee. Pärt had not composed in this genre since 1959, when he created a piece for string quartet as a student. The composition is dedicated to Alfred Schlee and was premiered by Arditti Quartet on November 1991 at the Konzerthaus Vienna at Schlee’s 90th birthday concert as part of the Wien Modern festival.

Another version of the work, composed in 1995 for string orchestra, was premiered in April 1995 by Kammerorchester Unter den Linden conducted by Andreas Peer Kähler at a concert of Arvo Pärt’s works in Berlin. A version for eight cellos, on commission by Cello Octet Amsterdam, was created in 2010, and premiered the same year at the Vale of Glamorgan Music Festival in Wales.

Psalom is based on Psalm 112 (113) in Church Slavonic, which, like many other of Pärt’s instrumental pieces, precisely determines the course of music. The nine verses of the psalm are inscribed into music following strict tintinnabuli rules and composed as melodic sentences that are separated from one another by grand pauses, starting silently and fading into silence again. The melody is based on the tone row E-F-G#-A-B-C-D. The composer himself has described the musical material as follows: “The focus is on two elements – stressed and unstressed syllables. They have been given a musical value. The unstressed syllables have been assigned a one-voice melody line, while the stressed syllables are always marked with a third. These two elements exist regardless of the meaning of the word.”