UC Riverside

A musical analysis of settings of the Twenty-third psalm by three English speaking 20th-century composers. The Twenty-third Psalm offers mourners solace in their hour of despair. The psalm affords composers an opportunity to confirm the meaning of the text or question its inherent wisdom. The settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Leonard Bernstein shed light on their spirituality as expressed through this consoling psalm. The three composers analyzed in this essay share musical signifiers and techniques, while providing varying expressive interpretations of the text's meaning.

The musical compositions included in this thesis are entitled, Breathing and Where Shadow Chases Light. The works tell the story of my grandmother's battle with Alzheimer's disease. The first movement musically tone-paints her fluctuating breathing patterns. The second movement is set to Rabindranath Tagore's poem, Where Shadow Chases Light, that depicts a souls journey from life to a world of promise.