Psalm (a German setting of the biblical Psalm 126) was composed in the summer of 1998 while living in Rome, Italy. The piece was commissioned by Modus Novus, one of the many fine choirs of Cologne, Germany. Having not composed a choral work since 1989, I immersed myself in the choral scores of Johannes Brahms to ignite my ideas for a new piece. Brahms himself had set the same psalm text in his German Requiem, but it was the fabric of his late choral motets that proved not just an inspiration for my own piece, but as a kind of point of departure. Psalm intends to subtly remind one of Brahms; a piece conceived as a kind of quiet continuation of those rich works.