Herbert Howells
Psalm-Preludes Set 1, Op. 32, No. 3
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psalm 23: 4)
The first set of Three Psalm-Preludes is among the earliest works for organ by twentieth century English composer, Herbert Norman Howells (1893-1983), written between 1915 and 1916. None of the Psalm-Preludes are directly linked to chorale or hymn, but rather are linked with a Psalm; in the case of this third Psalm-Prelude, the fourth verse of Psalm 23: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Psalm 23, commonly known in English by the first verse of the King James Version, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, or the Latin incipit, ‘Dominus reget me’, is possibly the best known of all of the Psalms of David. Its short length (just six verses) and universal theme of trust in God make it both approachable and applicable in many scenarios. The whole Psalm, according to the translation of the King James Bible, goes thus:
1 The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me
in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.[1]
The Psalm not only evokes the early shepherding part of the life of King David himself but also Jesus, echoing the description of “Good Shepherd” in the Gospel of St. John: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father”.[2] The image of Christ as the good shepherd is the is the most common symbolic representation of Jesus in early Christianity, manifest as a frequent motif in the Catacombs of Rome, amongst other places.
At the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome
The allegory of Jesus as the good shepherd of course must be interpreted in the context of the method of Shepherding in the East at the time. Whereas modern, western styles of shepherding involve driving the flock, most commonly using sheepdogs, the ancient, Eastern shepherd would guide and lead his sheep, therefore requiring an intimate knowledge of every one of his flock. It is in the midst of the pain and despair of the story of Christ’s Passion that Jesus gains the most intimate knowledge possible of his flock, in becoming the Lamb, one of us, the sheep. Jesus is the shepherd who becomes one of his flock; the Good Shepherd who became a Lamb in order to sacrifice his life for our sin. This is what he means in the Gospel of St. John, when he says , “I know my own and my own know me….” Pope Francis drew on the image transformation of shepherd to Lamb in his Holy Thursday address of 2013, where he asked his priests to “be shepherds with the smell of sheep.” With the resurrection of Easter, life conquers death and the Lamb that was slain becomes the Good Shepherd once more, guiding us through the valley of the shadow of death to the green pastures and still waters of the kingdom of God.
The apostle John, in the seventh chapter of his Revelation, paints such an image:
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”[3]
The twenty-third Psalm assures us of this, and Howells’ Psalm-Prelude based on that text evokes both the despair and hope evident also in the events of Holy Week and Easter. It is a characteristic of Howells’ music to create an acute sense of nostalgia and even despair combined with splendour.[4] This is no different in the third Psalm-Prelude of the first set of Three Psalm-Preludes, with its bleak opening in the brooding key of C minor, growing to an immense central climax in bright C major, and finally returning to a peaceful close.
Howells clearly wishes to emphasise the idea of the relentless journey, “through the valley of the shadow of death.” A repeated-note ostinato pervades much of the piece and it is Howells’ only Psalm-Prelude to remain in the same time-signature throughout; the slow tempo and scarce texture of the opening present a bleak view, much like Holy Week itself. The very first musical interval we hear is a descending semi-tone: the sigh of anguish and desperation. The pedal entry at bar eight echoes the sighing descending semi-tone, in low register on a single 16’ Principle stop. Athanasius Kircher, a major theoretician of Affects in music, maintained that dissonant intervals slow down life processes and hence induce sadness, while consonant intervals have the opposite effect. In his theory, musica pathetica, he says of the interval of a minor second: “Totius musicae anima semitonium est” (‘the semitone is soul of all music’).[5] However the piece slowly builds in intensity and an overwhelming sense of optimism, climaxing in bright C major with the dynamic marking of three f’s, suggestive of the text, “I will fear no evil” and subsequently, “for thou art with me”. In a typically Howellsian trait the intensity subsides, the piece finishing in the original tempo with the dynamic marking of three p’s however remaining in the optimistic key of C major. The pacing ostinato never truly ceases and, indeed, is made prevalent by Howells in the closing bars, suggesting that the journey “through the valley of the shadow of death” cannot be avoided; the tranquility surrounding the final bars, however, makes clear that God can make such a fearful journey bearable, since, “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
The story of the Passion of Christ is one of a journey through the valley of the shadow of death, one that seems to end with death as victor, Christ, our savior, hanging helplessly on the cross, the Good Shepherd transformed into the sacrificial Lamb. However it is not the end, and Christ rises indeed: with the arrival of Easter, death is defeated and the Lamb that was slain rises to be “the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).
Frederick Frostwick, April 2020
Footnotes
[1] Psalm 23, KJV
[2] John 10:14-15, NRSV
[3] Revelation 7:9-10, 13-17, NRSV
[4] W. McVicker, Herbert Howells, Psalm Preludes and Rhapsodies, Hyperion Label, CDA66394
[5] A. Kircher, Musurgia universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni, hg. von U. Scharlau, Hildesheim 1999 [1650]
Bibliography
McVicker, Herbert Howells, Psalm Preludes and Rhapsodies, Hyperion Label, CDA66394
J. Grice, Rhapsody in the Organ Works of Herbert Howells: An Examination of Rhapsody-Based Organ Works Both With and Without Text Associations and a Look at the Expressive Effects Implied by the Texts, 2008
Plymouthbrethren.org
En.wikipedia.org
Americamagazine.org
Lifeway.com
Vinestreet.org