Praises, by Samuel Pellman

Praises

for SATB choir, a cappella

duration - approximately 5 minutes and 20 seconds

Praises, composed in the spring of 1974, is a setting of Psalm 90, verses 1-12, from the New English Bible (used by permission of Cambridge University Press).

Here is an archival recording of a performance by the College Hill Camerata, directed by G. Roberts Kolb, in the Hamilton College Chapel on April 27, 1984 (please ignore the glitch approximately one minute in; the tape machine tried to eat the tape!) : (mp3 file)

Lord, thou hast been our refuge
from generation to generation.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or earth and world were born in travail,
from age to age everlasting thou art God (thou art God).

Thou turnest man back into dust;
"Turn back," thou sayest, "You sons of men";
for in thy sight a thousand years are as yesterday;
a night-watch passes, and thou hast cut them off;
they are like a dream at daybreak,
they fade like grass which springs up with the morning
but when evening comes is parched and withered (is parched and withered).

So we are brought to an end by thy anger
and silenced by thy wrath.
Thou dost lay bare our iniquities before thee
and our lusts (and our lusts) in the full light of thy presence.
All our days (all our days) go by under the shadow of thy wrath;
our years die away like a murmur (our years die away like a murmur).

Seventy years is the span of our life,
eighty if our strength holds;
the hurrying years are labor and sorrow,
so quickly they pass and are forgotten.
Who feels the power of thy anger,
who feels thy wrath like those that fear thee?
Teach us to order our days rightly,
that we may enter the gate of wisdom.

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