Mary Jane Ballou: Salterio and Songs

What is the salterio?
Simply stated, it is a wire-strung zither of 118 strings. There are 34 chromatic strings and 12 courses of 7 strings each, tuned as the chords of the chromatic Western scale. This is modern salterio, also known as a cithare, cetra, plucked psaltery, psalterion, or zither.

Where did it come from?
The origins of this plucked instrument lie in antiquity with the wire or gut-strung instruments of the Classical world and the Bible. The medieval psaltery, either played on the lap or held against the chest, is a frequent feature of the illustration of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. In a sense, these are the ancestors of the chromatic melody strings.

A product of the inventive world of 19th century Europe, chorded zithers became popular instruments in Bavaria and Austria. (Remember the theme in the Orson Welles’ classic, The Third Man?) The autoharp came to the United States and found its way out of the parlors and classrooms into the world of bluegrass music with such memorable performers as the women of the Carter Family and Bryan Bowers.

In the salterio, these two strands came together. In the early 1960s, a cloistered French nun came across a zither and recognized its potential for meditative music and the accompaniment of psalms. Its “Biblical” associations also made it attractive. Slowly the instrument began to spread from one monastic house to another and to develop. The monks of the Benedictine abbey of En Calcat resolved the final tuning hurdle in 1979 with the development of a mechanism to enable shifts from major to minor keys without laborious re-tuning.

But this is all technical – and rather dull. And dull is what the salterio is most decidedly not!

My life with the salterio
It’s about looking for a sound, the perfect sound I imagined. From piano and voice and guitar, organ and wind instruments to the harp, I have spent my life searching for the instrument with a voice unlike any other. In 2002, a chance encounter with a tape recording from a monastery in Tuscany revealed that voice. The salterio.

When I heard the salterio for the first time, I didn’t know what I was hearing, but I knew I wanted to find this instrument – whatever it was. And it wasn’t easy. What followed was correspondence with cloistered nuns who spoke little English, Internet searches in every language I could decipher, and the refusal to stop looking. And persistence was rewarded. I found the “cithare,” as it is called in France.

Having found it, I had to have one – more Internet searches and correspondence in a combination of fractured French and broken English followed. Several months later, this elusive voice arrived in a large cardboard box, with a zither wrench and a cheerful insert encouraging the new owner not to be daunted by the tuning process or discomfort to the fingers.

Built by the Benedictine monks of the Abbaye of En Calcat in France, this wire-strung salterio has a course of 34 chromatic strings and 7-string courses of arpeggios for 12 different keys. Tiny knobs allow the certain strings in the chords to be altered for major/minor keys.

But it’s not about how many strings, it’s the drop-dead beautiful sound of the instrument, which sounds like nothing else. (Well, maybe a cross between a hammered dulcimer and an autoharp if the two of them met on some celestial plane.)

For me, all of this has been serendipitous. For decades I’ve been fascinated by Gregorian chant, the unaccompanied liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church. I’ve studied it, sung it, taught it, and now direct a women’s schola. At the same time, my instrumental life had always been separate from my vocal interests. How remarkable that the stringed instrument I’d been seeking was born and has still its primary use in the same monasteries where chant is sung? Maybe there are miracles after all.



A Note on Names:

Why do I call it a salterio? Many of the English options don’t work well. In the USA, the “zither” is a toy instrument for children. The “psaltery” is associated with a modern bowed psaltery, a quasi-folk item appearing at craft fairs. And when I said “cithare,” everyone thought I was talking about Ravi Shankar because of the silent “h”! So – salterio it is – and ever will be for me! - The Salterio Revealed (Nov 29, 2007)

At Midnight in Bethlehem:
The Wonder of Christmas Eve
Mary Jane Ballou, Harp and Salterio

Prelude Iraqi Carol (Shuha D-Maryam – Chaldean)– This song to the Virgin Mary comes from the Chaldean Catholics of Iraq. Special thanks to Gilbert DeBenedetti for his earlier arrangement.

Angels and Shepherds
Ding! Dong! Merrily On High (French/English)
Die Hirten auf dem Felde - As Lately We Watched (Austrian)
Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes - Angels We Have Heard on High (French) This set of well-known carols celebrates the angels’ song and the shepherds’ surprise. “Ding! Dong!” combines a Renaissance French dance tune with early 20th century English words by George Ratcliffe Woodward, who also had an interest in church bells. “Die Hirten” comes from 19th century Austria. Its shepherds are interrupted by the angels of “Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes” singing Gloria in excelsis Deo in this 17th century French carol that is equally popular in its English translation.

Jesous Ahatonhia - Huron Carol (Wendat/French)
Entre le Boeuf et l’Ane Gris – Between the Ox and the Grey Donkey (French
Patapan (Burgundian) The oldest carol in North America leads off this French trio. With words in Wendat (Huron), St. Jean de Brebeuf brought the French tune Une Jeune Pucelle to New France in a song about hunters in a winter wood. The next carol ventures into the stable and finds a sleeping child surrounded by familiar farm animals – the ox and donkey. “Patapan” is a dance-y tune full of fifes and drums – tu-ru-lu-ra-lu, pat-a-pan – as Guillaume and Robin skip their way into Bethlehem.

El Cant dels Ocells - Carol of the Birds (Catalan)
El Noi de la Mare – The Son of the Virgin (Catalan)
A Belen vinde, pastores – Shepherds, Come to Bethlehem (Galician) Our feathered friends take center stage in these Spanish villancicos. In the Catalan “Carol of the Birds,” each bird celebrates its own gifts in this haunting carol, popularized by cellist Pablo Casals. In our second Catalan carol, shepherds discuss the best gifts to the child and his mother, including raisins, figs, honey and cream. From the northwest of Spain, more birds announce the Nativity as the shepherds arrive.

V Poli Poli pluzhok ore – The Plow in the Field (Ukrainian)
Shchedryk - Carol of the Bells (Ukrainian) In the frozen landscape of Ukraine, Christmas and New Year were celebrated with carols reflecting the life in the fields and hopes for prosperity in the coming year. The thoughtful melody of “V Poli Poli” is combined with the jubilant and internationally known “Carol of the Bells,” an adaptation by Leontovych of a folk song where a swallow flies into a house to announce the next year’s good fortune.


Interlude Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (French) Ralph Vaughn Williams paired a tune from northern France with words from the 4thc. Liturgy of St. James for the 1906 English Hymnal. And the rest is history, as they say.

In the Stable
What Child is This? (English)
Shuha D-Maryam – Song to the Virgin (Chaldean) Our Chaldean hymn comes into the stable with “What Child is This?” Using the pleasant 16th-century tune of Greensleeves, William Chatterton Dix added Christmas words, creating a 19th century carol with a Renaissance feel.

Away in a Manger (American – William J. Kirkpatrick)
Ninna Nanna – Wiegenlied (Johannes Brahms, Op. 49)
Away in a Manger (American – James R. Murray) With Janine Newfield, violin
Babies love lullabies and here are three tunes with a gentle rocking feel. Two melodies used with famous “Away in a Manger” surround Brahms’ “Lullaby,” popular in Europe with Christmas lyrics. Contrary to popular belief, the words to “Away in a Manger” did not come from Martin Luther but from the Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families, published in 1885 in Pennsylvania. Authorship aside, these lullabies are a delight.

Coventry Carol – Lully, Lullay (English)
Yao Yah Yao – Rock-a-Bye (Mandarin Chinese) December 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the children slaughtered at Herod’s behest. In the 16th century Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors from Coventry, this lullaby is sung by the mothers of Bethlehem. “Yao Yah Yao” is a Mandarin lullaby, which I included in remembrance of the often-discarded baby girls in China.

Es ist ein’ Ros’ Entsprungen - Lo, How A Rose (German) This late 16th-century chorale from Germany is best known in its harmonization by Michael Praetorius. To Catholics, the rose was Mary; to Protestants, Jesus. And both are correct. As the English poet Cristina Rosetti wrote, “Herself a rose, who bore the Rose.”

Stille Nachet - Silent Night (Austrian – F. Gruber) With Janine Newfield, violin
“Silent Night” has been loved since its composition in the Austrian village of Oberndorf in 1818. The first American performance (in German) took place in New York in 1839 and the popular English translation appeared in 1863. Can it be Christmas Eve without this carol?

Postlude I Wonder As I Wander (American) John Jacob Niles collected the fragment of this song in North Carolina in 1933 and then expanded and popularized this haunting tune that wonders why Christ was “born for to die.”