Psalm
Biblical song text from the Book of Psalms.
What it means
A psalm is a biblical song text from the Book of Psalms of the Old Testament, which contains 150 psalms. The texts are prayers and songs in poetry: praise, thanks, lament and petition. The Hebrew word for the collection, tehillim, means "songs of praise". The numbering of the psalms differs between the Hebrew and Latin Bibles by one or two.
Musical use
Psalms have been sung since antiquity and form the backbone of the Christian liturgy, in which they are delivered in psalmody according to fixed psalm tones. In the Reformation, metrical psalters such as the Genevan Psalter (1562) arose. Composers from Heinrich Schütz (Psalmen Davids, 1619) to Leonard Bernstein (Chichester Psalms, 1965) have set psalms for choir, soloists and orchestra.
The psalm should be distinguished from the hymn, a freely composed song of praise, and from psalmody, the style of delivery in which psalms are sung.
Performance practice
When you sing a psalm, pay attention to the meaning of the text: psalms alternate between praise, lament and petition. Speak the text distinctly, breathe at the half-verses and shape the intensifications in expression.