Psalm-setting challenge

One day back in 2007 I sat down in a mood of bitter rancour and rapidly sketched out an unpremeditated draft setting of Psalm 39, that text unmatched for the utterance of such dark states — ‘my heart was hot within me …man walketh in a vain shadow…O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen …’.

One day back in 2007 I sat down in a mood of bitter rancour and rapidly sketched out an unpremeditated draft setting of Psalm 39, that text unmatched for the utterance of such dark states — ‘my heart was hot within me …man walketh in a vain shadow…O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen …’. A few more days sufficed to polish the draft into completion: the mood passed; its complement followed — the gentle healing hopefulness of Ps.