From my interest in the Baconian question and the general period of  Elizabethan/Stuart England I came across the life and work of Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, who was one of the first Englishwomen to gain notice for her poetry and her literary patronage. 

​

Through this interest I came across Psalm 102, a 15 verse poem based on the 102nd Psalm that forms part of the larger work known as the Sidney Psalms. Philip Sidney, Mary's Brother, had completed translating 43 of the 150 Psalms at the time of his death on a military campaign against the Spanish in the Netherlands in 1586 and she finished his translations, composing Psalms 44 through to 150 in an array of verse forms, using the 1560 Geneva Bible and commentaries by John Calvin and Theodore Beza.

 

Inspired by the great Choral composers, such as Henry Balfour Gardiner, I set about composing, for Organ and SATB Choir, a setting of Marry Sidney Herbert's Psalm 102. Giving each verse its own movement within the work, Book of Hymns I: Psalm 102 consists of 16 movements, an organ prelude and then the 15 verses. The 14th movement, which is without organ, was premiered by the Sitwell Singers in January of 2024.

​

Organ Prelude

I - O Lord, my praying hear

II - My days as smoke are past

III - So lean my woes me leave

IV - I languish so the day

V - As day to day succeeds

VI - Therefore my bread is clay

VII - The sun of my life-days

VIII - Oh, then at length arise

IX - Thy servants wait the day

X - Because thou hast anew

XI - This of record shall bide 

XII - Hearnk'ning to prisoner's groans

XIII - But what is this if I

XIV - The earth, the heaven stands (Unaccompanied)

XV - But thou art one, still one

​

Duration 65