Mise à jour le 20/03/2024                 

au Psaltérion à modulateurs ...                                     



A few monasteries quickly grasped the connection between the zither and the liturgy during the liturgical reforms of the 1960s, and it was Brother Patrice, a monk of En Calcat, who invented the modulators (levers allowing the instrument to switch from major to minor keys) and transformed the folk zither into a liturgical instrument. He added five chords, and the twelve-chord psaltery was born, and it's still going strong, thank you! With its 24 classic chords, it can accompany all the tones of psalms and antiphons.
In a sense, the zither, in the service of the liturgy, rediscovers its original purpose. But can't this be said of every musical instrument—and of everything related to art and beauty? Like other instruments, but with its own unique charisma, the zither tells us something about God and can perhaps beRe is the vector through which God tells us something and through which we too address him, in joy or in tears. Why?
Sully Prud'homme he confessed
in his poth " The agony»

You who will help me in my agony,
Don't tell me anything;
Let me hear some harmony,
And I will die well.

Music soothes, enchants, and liberates
Things from below:
Soothe my pain; I beg you,
Don't talk to him.

I am tired of words, I am tired of hearing
That which can lie;
I prefer sounds to understanding
I only have to feel;

A melody into which the soul is immersed
And who, effortlessly,
It will take me from delirium to dreams.
From dream to death.

You who will help me in my agony,
Don't tell me anything.
For lightness, a little harmony
It will do me a world of good.

The word is out: harmony.

This word is both a word from everyday life and a technical term designating what is called in a restricted sense the "science of chords" and more broadly everything that is the arrangement of a musical piece.

And it is quite true that when you have found the right chords, and the instrument is well tuned, what you play It truly brings us into inner harmony.

It is not for nothing that the newsletter of the fledgling association of friends of the zither, under the impetus of Maguy, was called: " Zither and harmony "

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