Palestrina: Super flumina Babylonis

Since I’m doing some editing of our unit on Jerusalem in the Early Sacred Music course, it seems natural to turn to Psalm 137 for this week’s performance pick. Many composers have set this text to music. Psalm 137 describes the Jews being taken into exile, and it offers some of the most vivid imagery a composer could ask for.

By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

The Psalm goes on to describe the Babylonians requiring the Jews to sing them a song of Zion and their response, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” It is full of despair and bitterness.

Giovanni Palestrina (1525-1594) wrote some of the most important sacred music of the Renaissance. His Super flumina Babylonis (By the Rivers of Babylon) sets just the opening lines cited above.

Skilled choral groups often gravitate to music of the high Renaissance. The style features melodic lines that are controlled and well suited to the human voice. That doesn’t make it easy to sing, however. It simply transfers the difficulty to other aspects of the music. Notice in this example how each of the four vocal parts sings long phrases that imitate one another and overlap to create even longer, almost seamless musical passages. It takes very skilled singers and a lot of hard work to make all this come together in the right way.