Reformation II:�Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

Zebulon M. Highben

Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

John Calvin (1509-1564)

• Frenchman, trained as a lawyer, later became a theologian/pastor

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• broke with the Catholic Church ca. 1530; fled France for Geneva, Switzerland in 1536

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• established a theocracy in Geneva based on Biblical texts, and his Institutes (first Protestant systematic theological treatise)

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Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

John Calvin (1509-1564)

• Generally suspicious of society/culture and thought the church needed to be held apart; this led to a certain austerity in the worship life of Calvinist Geneva

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• Liked music and was a musician, but (like Augustine) worried about the power of music and its influence over people

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• Liturgically, a more radical reformer than Luther: “Abolished the Mass itself along with all the inherited music associated with the church” (Westermeyer, p. 83)

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Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

John Calvin

• “As for public prayers, there are two kinds. The ones with the word alone: the others with singing…even St. Paul speaks not only of praying by mouth, but also of singing. And in truth we know by experience that singing has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts…Care must always be taken that the song be neither light nor frivolous; but that it have weight and majesty…there is a great difference between music which one makes to entertain men at table and in their houses, and the psalms which are sung in the church in the presence of God and his angels.”

(Preface to the 1543 Genevan Psalter)

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Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

John Calvin

• “Now what Saint Augustine says is true – that we cannot sing songs worthy of God save what we have received from God. …We will not find songs…better suited to that end than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and uttered through him.”

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Calvin & Metrical Psalmody

• Only Biblical texts were permitted to be sung
• Metrical psalms
• Metrical versions of the Creed and Ten Commandments
• The Nunc Dimittis
• Singing was in unison and unaccompanied by instruments
• As in Wittenberg, worship on Sundays was supplemented by weekday (prayer services)
• “‘Tables’ of psalms were posted and time was given for psalm singing” (Westermeyer, Let the People Sing, p. 84) even outside formal worship services

Worship in Calvinist Geneva

Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• Metrical, rhymed, strophic translations of the Psalter into the vernacular which enable them to be sung as hymns

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• Metrical = “related to the poetic rhythm, determined by the character and numbering of recurring units…within a verse. In hymnody, metrical hymns follow a specific rhythm, unlike plainchant…” (C. Michael Hawn, Sing with Understanding, 3^rd Edition, p. 482)

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• Depending on the era and the source, “more poetic” or more strictly adhering to an ideal of “purity of translation”�
• What is the difference between a translation and a paraphrase?

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• Paraphrase = “a reworking of something written or spoken, often with the aim of clarifying the original intent. Hymnwriters frequently paraphrase scripture, especially the psalms and canticles.” (Hawn, p. 483)

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• Depending on the era and the source, “more poetic” or more strictly adhering to an ideal of “purity of translation”

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• “…the conflict remained between a literary desire to write poetry, which the fine Genevan meters looked like encouraging, and the pious desire to keep as close as possible to the language of the newly translated [into English] Book of Psalms” (Routley, A Panorama of Christian Hymnody, p. 13)

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• The genre was “invented” by Luther around 1523–24 (cf. Aus tiefer not) but was fully developed by Calvin and his followers.

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• First edition of The Genevan Psalter published in Strasbourg, 1539.

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• The earliest complete metrical psalter was the Souterliedekens (“Little Psalter Songs”) published in 1540, and going through thirty-three editions by 1613. Originally intended for home use, sung by Dutch Catholics.

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• The “center of activity” for Reformed psalmody was Calvinist Geneva.

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• Spread from Geneva and the French Reformed Church to the Netherlands, Hungary, England, and Scotland

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• “It was the influence of Calvin, not of Luther, that was decisive in the shaping of both the English and the Scottish Reformed churches…the effect [for church music] was to restrict congregational singing quite firmly to psalmody.” (Routley, p. 13)

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical psalms

• Spread from Geneva and the French Reformed Church to the Netherlands, Hungary, England, and Scotland

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• “It was the influence of Calvin, not of Luther, that was decisive in the shaping of both the English and the Scottish Reformed churches…the effect [for church music] was to restrict congregational singing quite firmly to psalmody.” (Routley, p. 13)

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Metrical Psalmody

The Genevan Psalter

• First edition: Strasbourg, 1539 – 18 psalms, metrical Creed, 10 commandments, Nunc
• Second edition: Geneva, 1542
• Third edition: Geneva, 1543
• Fourth edition: Geneva, 1551 – includes 83 psalms, with translations by both Clement Marot and Theodore Beza, with tunes written/edited/curated by Louis Bourgeois.
• Fifth Edition: Geneva, 1562 – First edition to have all 150 psalms

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Metrical Psalmody

The Genevan Psalter

• The eventual goal of the Genevan Psalter was to have an individual tune for each of the 150 psalms, so that each Psalm text would have a distinct melody and aural identity, and thus better imprint on the memory

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• Never quite made it: According to Emily Brink, the 1562 had 125 melodies for 152 texts (the psalms plus two canticles)

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• Routley says “125 meters (and 110 tunes)…many of the meters wayward, expansive, and beautiful” (p. 13)

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Text: Psalm 134; versification by Calvin Seerveld, © 1981/1987 CRC Publications.

�Tune; GENEVAN 134, Louis Bourgeois, 1551

Metrical Psalmody

Differences between Calvinist and Lutheran practice

• Luther preserves the Mass, and uses it as well as plainsong texts and melodies as source material for new chorales

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• There is a “kind of free-for-all” (Westermeyer) proliferation of Lutheran hymns and hymnals throughout the 16^th and 17^th centuries, centered around the historic liturgy and the liturgical year

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• Calvin abolished the mass and all preexisting musical materials

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Metrical Psalmody

Differences between Calvinist and Lutheran practice

• Calvinists created “a highly concentrated and restricted body of metrical psalms and tunes around a reconceived liturgical practice” (Westermeyer, p. 85)

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• “It should be noted that the Reformed tradition—restricted to the metrical psalms, and having rejected the historic liturgical structures which helped shape, discipline, and give context to the use of the Psalter—was left with a song which, standing alone, was neither Christocentric nor Triniatarian.” (Schalk, pp. 56-60)

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• [fn 10: “The churches which retained the historic liturgy recognized and addressed this problem by concluding the singing of each Psalm with the Lesser Gloria (Gloria Patri). This provided a context enabling the worshipper to hear the Old Testament Psalm through the ‘ears’ of the New Testament.”]

Metrical Psalmody

Differences between Calvinist and Lutheran practice

• For Lutherans, unison congregational singing was a practical reality, but polyphony and harmony were welcomed, if not assumed, and certainly not forbidden

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• For Calvinists, unison singing was a theological conviction to avoid the “light” and “frivolous” in worship – though partsinging was fine for the home

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• One might say the text and tunes of Lutheran chorales have a default orientation to prophetic proclamation, whereas the Calvinist psalms orient toward priestly prayer.

Metrical Psalmody

Similarities between Calvinist and Lutheran practice

• Both bodies of song are profoundly, intentionally, congregational

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• unlike plainsong (whose evolution and raison d'être is somewhat ambiguous), chorales and metrical psalms were worked out specifically to be sung by the assembly

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• Use a variety of meters

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• Regularly use bar form

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• Were sung in unison, and unaccompanied

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• Were rhythmic and probably sung more quickly than we would expect (“Genevan jig”)

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• but later get “ironed out” into isometric versions, and slowed down

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical Psalmody in England and Scotland

• “As luck would have it, an English psalm style was developing at the same time through the work of Thomas Sternhold, who, as Groom of the Royal Wardrobe, sought to entertain and educate the young King Edward VI by arranging the psalter in the style of the English and Scottish ballads, using their meter.” (Routley, p. 13)

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• Sternhold writes 37 English metrical psalms according to Routley; other sources say he published a collection of 19 metrical psalms in or by 1548

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• Scottish and English Protestants flee England for Geneva when Mary Tudor becomes Queen (1553–1558); there they encounter the Calvinist practice and the 1551 Genevan Psalter, and “from the first it was clear to the exiles…that metrical psalmody could be a most appropriate vehicle for public praise” (Routley, p. 13)

Metrical Psalmody

Metrical Psalmody in England and Scotland

• Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes – London, 1535
• Miles Coverdale’s collection
• Sometimes called the “First English Hymn-book”
• contained 41 texts, including Coverdale’s translations of Luther
• Banned by Henry VIII in 1539

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• The Whole Book of Psalmes collected into English Metre – London, 1562
• First complete English language Psalter
• Largely used Ballad meter (Common Meter Double: 8686 8686)
• Also called Sternhold and Hopkins, or The Day Psalter, or “The Old Version” (after 1696)
• The dominant psalter in England for over a century
• where the names OLD 100^TH and OLD 124^TH come from

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Metrical Psalmody

Metrical Psalmody in England and Scotland

• The Whole Psalter Translated into English Meter – London, ca. 1567
• Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter
• Nine tunes by Thomas Tallis

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• A New Version of The Psalms of David – London,1696
• More famously called Tate and Brady
• A revision of Sternhold and Hopkins, the “New Version” to its “Old Version”

Metrical Psalmody

Metrical Psalmody in England and Scotland

• The Forme of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments – Edinburgh, 1564
• First complete Scottish psalter appears as a part of this text

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• The Psalms of David in Prose and Meter – Edinburgh, 1635
• First harmonized psalter to appear in Scotland

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• The Psalms of David in Meeter – Edinburgh, 1650
• Also “The Scottish Psalter of 1650”
• probably the most important/famous Scottish psalter, approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, still in use

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The Lord’s My Shepherd

Text: The Psalms of David in Meeter, Edinburgh, 1650. 8.6.8.6.(8.6)

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Music: BROTHER JAMES AIR, James L. Macbeth Bain

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See textual comparisons of Psalm 23 in Routley, #9, p. 19–22

8.6.8.6 D (CMD)

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

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Text: Henry W. Baker, 1821-1877

8.7.8.7

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Music: ST. COLUMBA, Irish tune

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English/Scottish Psalmody: Its Influence

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• “Whereas Lutheran chorales and French psalm tunes employ many meters, English psalmody gravitates to a few: Short Meter, Common Meter, Long Meter, and their use as repeats or ‘doubles’.” (Westermeyer, p. 98)

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• These meters—which themselves relate to the older English ballad meter—become dominant not only in English language metrical psalmody, but English language poetry and English language hymnody.

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• Emily Dickinson, Isaac Watts, the Wesleys

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English/Scottish Psalmody: Its Influence

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• “The use of such few metrical forms for the bulk of the psalm texts [in Sternhold and Hopkins] led to a loss of richness and variety in its melodies, giving the collection a certain sameness when compared to the Genevan Psalter. Yet it was also an advantage, as it meant the congregation only needed to learn a few tunes to be able to sing all the psalms.” (Schalk, p. 57)

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English/Scottish Psalmody: Its Influence

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• Fewer meters, more frequently used, means that tunes can be more easily “swapped” to go with different texts, and English tunes—unlike Lutheran chorale tunes or French Genevan psalm tunes—lose their direct connection to their original texts.

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• “This gave rise to the independent naming of tunes in the English practice, whereas for the Genevan and Lutheran streams the text was sufficient to identify the tune.” (Westermeyer, p. 98)

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• “Dutch Door” English and Scottish Psalters

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English/Scottish Psalmody: Its Influence

The Bay Psalm Book

• Printed in 1640 by the Puritans in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Evolved out of some dissatisfaction with the psalters they brought with them (incl. Sternhold & Hopkins)
• No new tunes in first edition
• Later editions included texts by Issac Watts and texts from Tate & Brady
• First book printed in the American colonies

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