"Old 100th"

Free Church of Scotland, Inverness

A long time ago someone hired me to do some work with one of the early editions of the Genevan Psalter, I don't remember which version and I rather foolishly didn't make a note of it.  It was the one that Claude Goudimel wrote the simple, strophic, chordal settings for, though Louis Bourgeois and, I seem to recall some others, wrote the hymn tunes he set.   They were meant for use in the home, sung by amateurs, as in the Reformed church all music was sung single-lined without accompaniment.  I'm not sure it's the case that those settings made Goudimel the most widely performed and enduring composer of his time, his settings being, it would seem, in continual publication for the practical use of people in the Reform movement and probably other Protestants from the time he published them until today.   They are definitely music for use, though they are quite beautiful, transcribing all 150 or so of them all at once can sort of make your mind glaze over.

Doing that you come to take pity on the altos and tenors whose parts often consisting of just a few notes repeated for long stretches were nowhere near as interesting as the soprano, to whom Goudimel gave the melody, instead of the previous practice of having the tenor sing it, a practice which became nearly universal in all Christian hymnody in ensuing centuries.  The tradition that reached its high point in Bach's chorale settings passed through Goudimel's settings.  And the bass parts tend to be interesting having the most leaps.  But it's apparent that Goudimel had some pity for the inner voices as he generally gave them any syncopation and suspensions to break up the monotony.

While the rhymed, metrical paraphrases of the psalms are a significant compromise and the melodies aren't what you might find in Gregorian chant or a more contrapuntal setting* would contain, just about all of them are in two note values, half and whole, sometimes written as quarter and half notes, they have their strong points.  There's something to envy in their meaning to people who grew up on them and who can sing them so well.   I have no idea how much of a place they hold in the Reform tradition as practiced today but I could think of no better introduction to part singing, advanced ear training in hearing vertical harmonies as well as reading single lines and for training a choir to sing in tune than pieces like these.  That was what I was hired to do with them.  

Claude Goudimel, who began his life as a composer writing Catholic church music as well as secular music, converted to the Reform movement and was one of the people martyred in Lyon in the infamous murders of French Protestants.   But that didn't keep Catholic composers such as Orlando di Lasso from being impressed with his settings, making use of some of that material, or so I read.  I've heard his music, especially his setting of the 100th Psalm sung during mass, something which I can  imagine might have caused a ruckus in previous centuries.   We don't need to carry those old animosities into the future, we can reconcile even if our ancestors couldn't.

*  I don't mean the recitation formulas of the Gregorian Psalm tones, which are quite similar in some ways.   And Goudimel wrote a lot of rather good music in contrapuntal style, as well.