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.