This edition was prepared by David P. DeVenney — free to download, print, rehearse and perform.
By the Rivers of Babylon
Staff Notation • Sacred, Cantatas
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2 editions of this piece
Different typesettings and voicings of the same work. This page shows the main edition; the others are below.
SATB · David P. DeVenney
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By the Rivers of Babylon by James Cutler Dunn Parker — Lyrics
Psalmus David, Jeremiae. Super flumina Babylonis illic sedimus et flevimus, dum recordaremur Sion.
In salicibus in medio ejus suspendimus organa nostra:
quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui captivos duxerunt nos, verba cantionum; et qui abduxerunt nos: Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis Sion.
Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?
Si oblitus fuero tui, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea.
Adhaereat lingua mea faucibus meis, si non meminero tui; si non proposuero Jerusalem in principio laetitiae meae.
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About By the Rivers of Babylon
This setting of Psalm 137, also known as the "By the Rivers of Babylon" psalm, vividly captures the sorrow and longing of the Israelites exiled in Babylon. The text expresses their profound grief as they remember Zion, unable to sing their songs of the Lord in a foreign land. The composer, James Cutler Dunn Parker, sets this powerful Latin text in a way that allows the choir to convey the full emotional weight of the psalm. The work is scored for SATB voices, offering rich harmonic possibilities to underscore the text's themes of remembrance, lamentation, and a plea for justice against their oppressors.
