Psalm 117

The music in these posts is entirely derived from the accents in the Hebrew Bible. Introductions - letters, music, text and music, and terminology, are here. 

There's a rather interesting history of Hallel sequences which appeared on my radar this morning after I had decided to do the 'shortest' psalm next.

Psalm 117: Syllables 34 Longest recitation 6 Tenor e  26.47%

In the Masoretic text, Psalm 117 remains the shortest psalm. 8 words, 34 or 36 syllables (add one between the two l's of the first and last words). There are only two verses, one a bi-colon-A which occurs in 47 verses in exactly this form, and one a single unique phrase which could be subdivided at the revia at the end of bar 7.

1 Praise Yahweh, all nations. Commend him, all the clans.
א הֽלל֣ו את־י֭הוה כל־גוי֑ם ש֝בח֗והו כל־האמֽים	8 7		a hllu at-ihvh cl-goiim wbkuhu cl-haumim
2 ♪f For his mercy has prevailed over us, and the truth of Yahweh is forever. Praise Yah.
ב כ֥י ג֘ב֤ר על֨ינו חסד֗ו וֽאמת־יהו֥ה לעול֗ם הֽללו־יֽה	19		b ci gbr ylinu ksdo vamt-ihvh lyolm hllu-ih

This is a highly rhythmic psalm begging for percussion accompaniment. Haïk-Vantoura's handwritten copy is the same shape as my version above, but in a different mode.

Here's a possible arrangement. There are no performances on the web that I have found. Being so short, I repeated the psalm 3 times with the middle section changing the mode, so the ancient string player might want to have two differently tuned instruments for the performance.