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3 Feb 2021

Psalm 24: new tune needed?

This psalm from the RPCNA's Book of Psalms for Worship, Psalm 24, is nicely sung, and the text is fine. Give it a listen here:

All the same, most Christians will find the familiar William Howard Doane tune distracting, as it is nearly universally associated with Fanny Crosby's beloved To God Be the Glory. Some tunes can be appropriately matched with multiple texts, as the success of Scotland's split-leaf psalters testifies. However, when a tune is so thoroughly associated with a given lyric, it may need to be passed over when new metrical psalters are being compiled. This is a good reason why Brian Wright's Anatomy of the Soul project is so compelling.

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