Update: Psalm 2

Having finally received and heard the Sacred Bridges album, I was inspired to compose my own arrangement of the tune for Psalm 2, along with an unrhymed metrical versification, which I have now posted at the website. I have also posted a brief review of this CD under discography, much of which replicates what I wrote below on 9 March.

Thomas Tallis' psalms

This takes us back to England, of course, but I think it's worth drawing attention here to the beautiful melodies — nine in number — that Thomas Tallis composed for Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter. The most haunting of these is the third tune, commonly referred to as THIRD MODE MELODY (because it's in the phrygian or third mode), to which Psalm 2 is set. Twentieth-century composer Ralph Vaughan Williams famously used it as the basis for his own Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, a personal favourite of mine. PDF files of the music can be accessed at Free-scores.com.

These tunes can be heard below, as performed by the Renaissance Singers.

A Reformed symbol

Read about this on my other blog: The Burning (Unburnt) Bush.

Updates: Psalms 23 and 130

I have just written another versification of Psalm 23 to be sung to any common metre or double common metre melody, in the style of the several editions of the Scottish Psalter. I have chosen DUNFERMLINE as the tune and posted it here.

I have also posted music for my common metre versification for Psalm 130, as well as corrected a printing error in the pdf file for Psalm 137.

Later: I've posted one more item: a double common meter version of the Song of Simeon or Nunc Dimittis, set to the familiar tune BETHLEHEM.