Frideswide Psalms (2026)

Frideswide Psalms is a three-movement setting of several interwoven psalms, whose imagery circles the life of the early medieval Saint Frideswide.

The first movement, A Nest, introduces a five-note motif which permeates the piece; the psalmist implies two sorts of metaphoric dwellings: the “courts of the lord” (here, represented by quite formal music with squared edges), as well as the gentler and pastoral images of the sparrow’s house and the swallow’s nest (suggested by hushed strings and a latticework of woodwinds). The movement ends with a suggestion of moving water.

The second movement, Hear Me, is dramatic and depicts flight, escape, wind and tempest — particularly resonant with the legend of Frideswide, who fled to avoid unwanted attention from a gentleman caller. Austere canons on the word “O” usher in another avian interlude: “O, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away, and be at rest.”

The third movement, Wings, starts simply, a private sort of song. Slowly, all the hushed music opens out, through wordless pulses and repeated semiquavers, into a strong declaration on the text “Therefore, I will offer in his dwelling an oblation with great gladness.” All of the techniques and images in the first two movements collide (flight giving way to the shelter beneath God’s wings), and the comparatively modern language of the Book of Common Prayer dissolves into the 14th century Wycliffe translation: God schal help it eerli in the grey morewtid — the grey morning, or, more poetically, the grey tomorrow.

The piece doesn’t aim to force a connection between the Psalms and the Saint so much as offer moments of resonance and rhyme between her life and their imagery.