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.

Unlike the Genevan Psalter, metrical texts in psalters used in the British Isles were not permanently joined to specific tunes. As, for example, the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter went through its various editions during the 16th and 17th centuries, tunes were freely changed with old ones being dropped and new ones added with each edition. A rather detailed history of this process can be found in Timothy Duguid, Metrical Psalmody in Print and Practice: English 'Singing Psalms' and Scottish 'Psalm Buiks', c. 1547-1640 (Routledge, 2014), which I read last year. Because the texts were in a very few rigidly regular metres, a single common metre (CM) text could be sung to a huge number of possible tunes. In reality, of course, particular congregations may have developed their own traditions of singing, for example, Psalm 23 to CRIMOND, a pairing which has managed to catch on throughout the English-speaking world. But this tune dates only to 1872.

In other words, the music to which the Scottish Psalter is sung today is mostly not original to 1650, making it hard to compare to the Genevan Psalter, whose irregular metres would make it difficult to abandon the unique tunes composed for them in the 16th century and to adopt new ones. The Genevan Psalter in its various editions has been characterized by a greater stability over time than the Sternhold & Hopkins, Tate & Brady, and Scottish Psalters.

This is why a modal analysis of the two collections yields such disproportionate results. The Genevan Psalter is characterized by a fairly balanced relationship between the tunes and their specific modes. Here are the respective modes as used in the western church over the centuries:

• Ionian: scale runs from C to C on the white keys of the piano. This is what we nowadays call the major scale. It evokes a certain bright tone and is often said to communicate cheerfulness or contentedness.
• Hypo-ionian: scale runs from C to C on the white keys with much of the tune below the tonic.
• Dorian: scale runs from D to D on the white keys. Tunes in this mode often have a haunting or mysterious feel. The Dorian communicates a variety of emotional moods, including grief, joy, triumph, and wonder.
• Hypo-dorian: once more the scale runs from D to D with much of the tune below the tonic.
• Phrygian: scale runs from E to E on the white keys. It effectively conveys a certain dark, exotic, or even majestic feel. Think of the opening measures of the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.
• Lydian: scale runs from F to F on the white keys, with the raised 4th conveying a sense of mystery, wonder, and even hope. Often used effectively in cinematic scores.
• Mixolydian: scale runs from G to G, the only difference from the Ionian being a lowered 7th. This mode is characteristic of folk, jazz, rock, and a variety of musical genres. While the raised 7th pushes the hearer heavily towards resolution to the tonic, the lowered 7th makes such a resolution seem less urgent, allowing the hearer to bask in a moment of sturdy irresolution, if that makes sense. This scale too conveys a certain mystery lacking in the Ionian.
• Hypo-mixolydian: once again scale runs from G to G, with much of the tune below the tonic.
• Aeolian: scale runs from A to A on the white keys. Equivalent to our minor scale. Often conveys sadness or melancholy, but not always.
• Hypo-aeolian: scale runs from A to A, with much of the tune below the tonic.

The Genevan Psalter's tunes are composed in all of these modes, with the exception of the Lydian. (I leave out the Locrian, which is inherently unstable and ill-suited to widespread use.) Here is a list of modes with the number and percentage of tunes indicated afterwards:

• Ionian:                     19               15%
• Hypo-ionian:           18               14%
• Dorian:                    38               30%
• Hypo-dorian:             9                 7%
• Phrygian:                 11                 9%
• Mixolydian:              9                   7%
• Hypo-mixolydian:   10                  8%
• Aeolian:                    5                  4%
• Hypo-aeolian:           6                  5%

As you can see, the Dorian and Hypo-dorian modes together account for 47 of the tunes in the Psalter, or 37 percent of the total. The Ionian and Hypo-ionian together account for 37 tunes, or 29 percent of the total. The Aeolian and Hypo-aeolian account for just 11 tunes, or 9 percent of the total.

In one sense it is unfair to compare the Genevan and 1929 Scottish Psalters, because the latter's music mostly dates from a period in which the modes were being simplified into the major and minor scales. But to illustrate the change, we can do the same with the tunes of the Scottish Psalter:

• Ionian                   163                 84%
• Aeolian                  27                 14%
• Dorian                     2                    1%

Tunes in the major (Ionian) scale account the vast majority of those in the Scottish Psalter. Only two tunes are in the Dorian mode: MARTYRS, as we have previously noted, and PSALM 107, which is an adaptation of the proper Genevan melody to double common metre (DCM) (8 6 8 6 8 6 8 6). The former apparently originated in 1615, according to Hymnary.org. When I posted a link to Psalm 43 to MARTYRS in the Lovers of Metrical Psalmody Facebook group, one observer called it "amazing" and "powerful." One wonders what the Scottish Psalter would have been like if similar tunes had been used throughout, and if the tunes had remained fixed to particular texts. This might have narrowed the gap between British and Continental sung psalmody over the long term.