The Psalm
There aren’t many Psalms as disturbing as 4. It begins with the many, many enemies who are coming against me!
Sometimes we might say the words are a snapshot of reality. Psalm 4 does not sound like that. It seems it carries several snapshots. There are visions of the psalmist being ambushed by his enemies. The account is left, and moved on to praising God on his protection. That is left where it is, and the description then moved on to how God gave him peace and protection while he slept.
That is what caught my senses when I was choosing between this psalm or 99, to set to music. There is a cry of pain, longing for release. There is also the recognition – trust and faith – that the psalmist will be ok because of God.
The new music
- The clue is in the first bar: this new music is a near exact copy of the melodic rhythm of another hymn. Use that clue to guess what that hymn is. 😁
- The melody for this hymn didn’t take much time to develop. I drafted the melodic contour, and hummed it several times and satisfied with it. As I put in the harmonic voices, I made some adjustments to the melody (soprano). All in all, 3 hours was what it took me to set the melody, then the lyrics and finally the harmonic parts.
- Checking it through lots of time, I made some other adjustments, including changing “victory and courage” to “courage and victory”, which also meant changing the title from “shield, victory and courage” to “shield, courage and victory”. I prefer victory before courage but to make it work better in this music, “courage and victory” works better.
- About the Bb key. It was my first instinct to set it in Bb; I had perceived that the melody will not go too high above D, nor too low say before middle C.
- The modulation to F in bar 9 came about naturally, though it might feel too early in the piece. I then decided to modulate further to a mix of C and Am, in bars 11-12. While this sounded fine, it was a surprise that the Am chord worked, since it is the minor 7th chord of Bb.
- In bar 16, the alto has the chance to step down to Gb on the way from G to F. That harmony looks like a Gb diminished with a Bb bass.
- Taken all those together, while Eb is a primary )subdominant) of Bb, it (Eb major triad) sounds strangely alien in this piece, as if it is accidental.
A paraphrase
O Lord, there are more against me than for me!
More and more they want to put me down;
they even claim to know about my spiritual need, saying
“There is no hope for him in God.”
I turn to you, God, who is my defender like a shield,
you give me courage and I feel my head lifted up.
When I reached out to you,
You answered me and I felt like drawing near to your holy presence.
Whether awake or asleep,
you keep watch over me.
Of the thousands of people against me I am not afraid
Yes, even if they are ready to put me down.
Get ready, my God!
Rescue me from these people!
You only need to inflict their cheek and the teeth
To set them running away.
In you, Lord, I find salvation
You save me.
I also find you love to bless your people!