Psalm Offering 5, Opus 7 is the newest composed Psalm Offering in a collection of music I am entitling the “Lamentations Psalm Offerings”. Psalm Offering 5 is a musical prayer offered up for the victims of hunger in our world.
Infants and babes faint in the streets of the city. They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom. (Lamentations 2: 11c-12)
One can hardly turn on the television without seeing an advertisement for “Feed Our Starving Children” or other similar programs to feed the starving in the world. Famine, mighty storms like hurricanes, drought, pestilence and so many other natural factors bring on the starvation of people. It is a slow, cold, and cruel death. What is most insidious are those in powerful places who purposely starve out whole segments of people. Governments have been known to purposely starve those who oppose them. One only has to look at the Sudan region of Africa, Syria, and other nations to see the horror perpetuated upon the innocent by starvation.
This Psalm Offering is a prayer to God on behalf of the starving peoples of the world.
Scriptural passage from: Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (Page 1151). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
(c) 2017 by Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
About the music: This is a piano piece in a form known as “variations on a theme.” A theme or melody is stated fairly simply, then that theme is varied in many different ways. Within this composition, the theme is originally stated in a time signature of 2/4. The theme shifts to 3/4 (or waltz meter), then to 6/8, and concludes in a 4/4 time signature. Along the way the tempo varies from fairly moderate to extremely fast. The key changes from F Lydian to A Lydian to G Lydian to C minor, to C Lydian and concludes in E minor.
Lydian is an ancient Greek scale in which the scale ascends, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step (in contrast to the major scale we are all familiar with: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step whole step, half step.). The Lydian Scale almost sounds like a major scale but it is still very different, which makes for an unusual melody line.
