In the time-honored tradition of church musicians who compose music for local use, Robert A. Hawthorne created these beautiful new settings of the psalms for his congregation in Oregon. They proved so singable, so sensitively rendered, and so liturgically appropriate that many who heard them felt this music should be more widely available.

The Portland Psalter: Book One, brings the first part of Hawthorne's psalter to the larger church. It contains settings for all psalms appointed for the Sunday Eucharist according to the Book of Common Prayer lectionary and the Revised Common Lectionary. Book Two contains the balance of psalm settings for the church year together with pastoral offices and ordination rites and the Easter Vigil.