Musical mountains in motion!
SING A NEW SONG:
Living Psalms and Scottish scenes
70 min. video - 23 psalm versions
Free Church of Scotland Psalmody Committee, Edinburgh
£14.95 (UK format)
With up to 900 unaccompanied voices taking us on 'a musical and spiritual journey through the Psalms of David' to a backdrop of the highlands and islands, the Free Kirk invites others beyond its membership to enjoy a distinctively Scots experience.
It is aimed at eye, ear, heart and mind. The eye takes in not only the broad seas and skies of Lewis and Harris, but port ferries and town buses too. To see it through at a sitting is to have one's fill of watching a big congregation in full voice, but the voyeurism is offset by some telling interviews of young and old saying what the Psalms mean to them. King David was a shameful backslider; so was I, says a young man. David had lost his son; so have I, says an older woman.
So our ears hear not only Atlantic breakers and grand singing, but personal testimony touching heart and mind. It is easy to say the Psalms are a foretaste of heaven, or even a reminder of New Testament worship. They also give us unique insights into the devotional life and thought of Jesus, and even mark a way through to a generation which has lost interest in the church but is much taken with spirituality.
But the mind also needs to ask: 'Which Psalms?' and question the future of the rugged 1650 metrical Psalter, so beloved by its supporters but confusing to many Christians. We soon pick up from the soundtrack 'God keep for ever will', and such inside-out language is confirmed by the glimpses of archaic Common Metre moving up the screen. The better news is that the church's Psalmody Committee has also pioneered 'Sing Psalms', with some of its newer versions featured here. Revised texts and tunes like 'Marrell' and Isobel Scott's 'Exultation' are signs of hope which in the cultural context are of mountain-moving proportions.
Old or new, however, here is a powerful advertisement for a fine tradition.
