Perfice gressus meos
“O hold thou up my goings”

The text for the Offertory on Sexagesima and the Sixth Sunday after Trinity is taken from Psalm 17. The second half of this Psalm is dominated by calls for protection from enemies. The first half begins with a claim by the psalmist of a sincere and deliberate desire to be faithful to the Lord, a faithfulness which only he can guarantee:

Perfice gressus meos in semitis tuis: Ut non moveantur vestigia mea:
O hold thou up my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps slip not.
Inclina aurem tuam et exaudi verba mea:
Incline thine ear to me, and hearken unto my words.
Mirifica misericordias tuas: qui salvos facis sperantes in te, Domine.
Shew thy marvellous loving-kindness, thou that art the Saviour of them which put their trust in thee.

There are many settings of this text. One of the settings our choir has sung was composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594). It is sung here by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, directed by Richard Marlow.

Czech composer Otto Albert Tichý (1890–1973) studied composition at the Schola Cantorum de Paris, whose other students included Erik Satie, Edgard Varèse, and Cole Porter. An organist for a time at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, he was a long-time choirmaster and organist at St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. He taught for decades at the Prague Conservatory, offering instruction in Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony even as Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communists.

His setting of Perfice gressus meos is one of many sacred works he left the Church. It is sung here by Les Chanteurs de Prague, conducted by Stanislav Mistr.