Le Psautier de Genève 1729

In recent months I have made the acquaintance of Philippe Lacombe, a Frenchman who maintains a blog devoted to the Genevan Psalter, along with an associated Twitter account. He recently published a hard-bound edition of the 1729 French version of the Genevan Psalter, a copy of which I have just obtained. It contains a preface by Lacombe, an index of the Psalms, an index of Psalms using the same tunes, and the 150 Psalms themselves. This is from the preface, which I have translated into English:

Put to rhyme by the poet Clément Marot and the reformer Theodore Beza between 1539 and 1562, the 150 Psalms of the Bible were made available to the Reformed churches for liturgical singing in protestant worship. The definitive version of the psalter was published in 1587.

In the 17th century, Valentin Conrart, first secretary of the French Academy modernized the psalter, and his revision was completed by Marc-Antoine de La Bastide. Published in full in 1679, the new collection of the Psalms was gradually adopted by the French-speaking Reformed churches scattered throughout Europe, which did not hesitate to make their own revisions.

The Genevan Psalter chosen for this edition is that which was revised and authorized by the Walloon synod of the francophone churches in the Netherlands which was accepted in their temples from 1729. It was also the French psalter of the United Church of England and Ireland during the 19th century. The new edition takes account of the evolution of orthography and has all the music for the traditional tunes. The brief summaries appearing under the title of each psalm have been retained and are attributed to the theologian David Martin . . . .

Thanks to this new edition of the collection, you have the occasion to reconnect with psalmody and to profit from the beautiful rhymes which sustained the Huguenot people for many generations and which witness today to the riches of protestant poetry.

You can order your own copy from the usual online book vendors, including Amazon.