While it has fallen into relative disuse recently, the text for De Profundis (Psalm 130 in Latin) was frequently set to music by composers in the past. It is a psalm of lament, meant to be prayed both for oneself and for others, and it is in this spirit that I approached this composition.
De Profundis is both a prayer—for the refugee, the orphan, the hopeless, indeed for all who suffer—and a promise. From its opening cry out of the depths to its closing glimpse of redemption and restoration, it is in the tension between these two poles that we live and wait. The stanzas of the psalm are unfolded gradually in a musical structure meant to mirror the text itself: from the small seed motive that sets the introduction in motion to the work taken as a whole, each aspect of De Profundis was conceived of as an upward sweep—out of the depths into unearthly light.
Nova Vulgate text used by permission of the LIBRERIA EDITRICE VATICANA.
SCOTT BLASCO 