Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life

I would love to see this exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum: Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life. Here is a description of the exhibit:

Sing a New Song traces the impact of the Psalms on men and women in medieval Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century. It encompasses daily practices and performance, as well as the creation of Psalters (Books of Psalms), among the most richly ornamented manuscripts ever made. Stressing the integration of the Psalms in medieval life, topics range from children saying their prayers to people preparing to die.

The Morgan Library & Museum is located in midtown Manhattan in New York City. The exhibit runs from 12 September 2025 until 4 January 2026.

Psalm Singing and the Genevan Psalter

I would love to have been present at this wonderful presentation by Prof. Karin Maag at Calvin University: Psalm Singing and the Genevan Psalter. Maag was one of my principal hosts when I lectured at Calvin on the same subject three years ago. She is author of Worshiping with the Reformers, which I reviewed last year.

The Lord's Supper: how often?

An article I wrote some 35 years ago has been translated and published in Portuguese. The title is The Lord's Supper: how often? and was originally published in Reformed Worship, 15, March 1990. The translated article can be found here: A Ceia do Senhor: Com Que Frequência?, posted at Liturgi Homo: Reflexões sobre Culto Público e Liturgia. I have long been persuaded that our churches should be celebrating the Lord's Supper at least every week. I am pleased to report that in recent years the practice is expanding in the Reformed churches. My own congregation has done so for about a year or so, and the congregation where our daughter and son-in-law worship does so as well. The congregation with which I worshipped in New York City in January also celebrates the Lord's Supper weekly. Thanks be to God!

At last: a complete Genevan Psalter playlist

The current project drew on a very few of my earlier recordings of Genevan Psalter tunes, but it began in earnest last November, when I started to record as many of these 16th-century melodies as I could master. As of today, I have now completed my guitar performances, recordings, and uploadings of all 124 tunes of the Genevan Psalter, along with a few associated tunes, which can be enjoyed in order here.

Here is Psalm 129, which I recorded this morning:

 And the last one to be added to the playlist, Psalm 132:

Listeners will perhaps not be surprised that I left the most challenging of the tunes to the end. In fact, I was far from certain that I would be able to master all of them. Some I have been able to play for years, if not decades. Others I worked up more recently, with the final tunes being performed and recorded today.

I might add that this belatedly fulfils a commitment to the Stanford Reid Trust, whose grant in 2021 was intended to allow me to add a limited number of performances of the psalm tunes to my YouTube channel—something delayed by the pandemic and illness. Instead, with permission from the Trust, I used the funds to complete my versifications of the Psalms that year, a project you can read about here.

Brian Wright's Anatomy of the Soul: Psalm 27

Our friend Brian Wright continues his musical journey through the Psalms, using the texts from the Book of Psalms for Worship set to his own music. Here is a lovely rendition of Psalm 27:

Genevan Psalm 4

In my guitar journey through the melodies of the Genevan Psalter, my latest performance is of Psalm 4. This leaves me with only 20 tunes remaining before completing this project, which began in earnest last November. Many of these last tunes I have found especially challenging, and this includes Psalm 4, which is unusually long at 10 lines and has an irregular metrical pattern of 98 99 89 89 98. Lines 3 and 6 repeat, but there are no repetitions in the other lines. These factors make it difficult to memorize. It is one of only 6 tunes in the Aeolian mode, which is equivalent to our minor scale. I played it at a fairly brisk pace, because, at such length, it tends to drag when being sung. The entire Genevan Psalter playlist can be accessed here. I will, of course, alert readers to the completion of this project when and if the time comes. Stay tuned. 

Click on this link to see the full text of this Psalm.

Calvin Seerveld (1930-2025)

Calvin Seerveld was the longtime senior member in aesthetic philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. I myself was a junior member (student) there in the late 1970s and had the privilege of sitting in one of his seminar courses. Although he was not my principal mentor, I recall his inimitable teaching style and the enthusiasm he brought to the subject matter.

As I write, I am looking at my notes from one of Seerveld's lectures from 20 September 1978. In my youthful handwriting, I quoted him: "The world is a created theatre of God," and "One finds meaning in Jesus Christ." Seerveld was above all a faithful servant of Christ and a memorable teacher.

Is the LORD God a sun and shield? A follow up

After I posted last week on a solar metaphor for God, I looked back at my own metrical versification of Psalm 84 and discovered that I too had paraphrased this text, eliminating the reference to the sun, but following through on its meaning:

Better by far one day to be
within your courts than live to see
a thousand years while elsewhere dwelling.
The threshold of your house, O Lord,
is vastly thus to be preferred
to where the wicked make their dwelling.
For God the LORD, our source of life,
will be our shield amid the strife.

I am currently exploring publication options for my English-language Genevan Psalter collection.

Is the LORD God a sun and shield? LXX: perhaps not

Not long ago I was reading a book that quoted Psalm 84:11: "For the LORD God is a sun and shield." I have observed in the past that the Greek Septuagint translation (LXX) of the Old Testament tends to avoid rock metaphors for God, substituting another word such as strength. For example, Psalm 95:1 runs as follows in the RSV: "let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation," while the New English Translation of the LXX (NETS) has it as such: "let us make a joyful noise to God our savior!" Might the LXX do something similar with a sun metaphor for God? After all, ancient peoples around the world, from Egyptians to Aztecs, worshipped the sun as a god. Might the LXX translators have exhibited a skittishness about inadvertently identifying the God who has created and redeemed us with the sun?

The church modes in Scotland and Geneva

In my previous post, I linked to a choral rendition of Psalm 43 from the Scottish Psalter, as sung to the haunting tune MARTYRS, one of only two tunes in that collection in the Dorian mode. I should immediately clarify that the edition of the Psalter to which I am referring is the 1929 edition published by the Church of Scotland. This includes tunes ranging from the 16th through the 19th centuries. The edition shown here is a split-leaf psalter, in which tunes and texts can be mixed and matched according to the preferences of ministers and congregations.

Psalm 43 to MARTYRS

Here is Psalm 43 from the 1650 Scottish Psalter sung to the tune MARTYRS. Note that it is in the Dorian mode, whose use is quite rare amongst the tunes to which this 17th-century collection has been set. This gives the text an unusually plaintive feel, although the Dorian mode covers an emotional range beyond the plaintive as well. The Genevan Psalter, by contrast, sets just over a third of the Psalm texts to tunes in the Dorian or Hypo-dorian modes. One explanation for this difference is that the tunes of the Genevan Psalter were influenced by gregorian chant and the traditional church modes, while the Scottish Psalter was less dependent on these historic elements, having originated at a time when western music was transitioning from its mediaeval form and assuming the tonal patterns more familiar to us today.

Laurence on the imprecatory Psalms

Trevor Laurence has published a book titled, Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Baylor University Press, 2023). Here is a conversation between Adriel Sanchez and Laurence on the book's controversial subject matter:

My own thoughts on the Psalms we may find difficult to pray can be found here: God as judge: praying the imprecatory Psalms.

The Lukan canticles and the Synod of Dort

Although the Reformed Churches are best known for singing the Psalms, other biblical canticles have played a role in Reformed liturgies in several settings. Here is article 69 of the Church Order of Dort of 1618:

In the Churches only the 150 Psalms of David, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Twelve Articles of Faith [Apostles' Creed], the Song of Mary, that of Zacharias, and that of Simeon shall be sung. It is left to the individual Churches whether or not to use the hymn “Oh God! who art our Father.” All other hymns are to be excluded from the Churches, and in those places where some have already been introduced they are to be removed by the most suitable means. 

The hymn, O God! who art our Father, seems to refer to a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, possibly a reference to Martin Luther's familiar elaboration of the biblical text.

Here are my own guitar performances of the three Lukan canticles, beginning with the Song of Mary (Magnificat), then the Song of Zechariah (Benedictus), and finally the Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis), all, of course, from the first two chapters of Luke:

Psalm 29

Psalm 29 is a hymn to God's power and might, especially as manifested in natural phenomena. It's possible that the biblical author was caught in a thunderstorm and thought to express his awe through this text. William L. Holladay believes that it is one of the oldest of the Psalms, although one might quibble with his reason for so assuming. Psalm 29 appears near the climax of Charlotte Mary Yonge's The Heir of Redcliffe, which had a huge influence on Abraham Kuyper's walk with God. It is the last Psalm sung at evening prayer on the 5th day of the month in the Book of Common Prayer.

Psalm 116 and a young organist

Who could fail to be inspired by the competence at the organ of a very young Cameron Oostdyk playing Genevan Psalm 116? This video was posted seven years ago. Oostdyk is now grown and studying at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA. May God bless his studies, and may he continue to accompany God's people as they sing their praises.

Psalm 23 and Herzliebster Jesu: A derivative relationship

The Genevan Psalter provided the basis for several tunes that would come to be matched to unrelated hymn texts. A few of these would be borrowed verbatim, such as the tune for Psalm 42 and the beloved Advent hymn, Comfort, Comfort, Ye My People, a free versification of the initial verses of Isaiah 40. Other tunes would be altered to fit a new text, such as the tune for Psalm 23 and HERZLIEBSTER JESU, usually translated as Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended. Here are the two tunes below:

 

Three paschal hymns

My affection for the tradition of German chorales is related to my love for the tunes of the Genevan Psalter, as I've written before in this space. Here are three chorales for Easter:

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

A Holy Week hymn: O Sacred Head

During Holy Week, especially Good Friday, western Christians throughout the world sing this beloved hymn, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded. Written in German by Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), it is based on a hymn by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153). The tune was composed by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612). The tradition of German chorales, bequeathed to us by the Lutheran churches, bears considerable similarity to that of the Genevan Psalms. Repeated initial phrases, irregular metres, and a plethora of feminine endings are the signs of a shared continental heritage.

Psalm 11

I have now added a performance of Genevan Psalm 11 to my YouTube channel and playlist. The full Genevan Psalter playlist now consists of 78 such performances with more forthcoming.

Lift Up Your Hearts: a hymnal review

From 1934 until quite recently, the Christian Reformed Church in North America worshipped with a succession of Psalter Hymnals, the most recent of which was published in 1989 and sported a grey cover. This volume sat in the pews of congregations until the grand shift to overhead slides with words, and in some cases music, projected onto screens, enabling parishioners to sing without books in their hands, as well as to sing songs not contained in the books.

Our own congregation replaced the grey Psalter Hymnals some years ago with a collection jointly produced by the CRC and the Reformed Church in America (RCA), called, Lift Up Your Hearts: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs (LUYH). We read this on the hymnal's website: