Coinciding with the publication of the new edition of Cântările Psalmilor, Psalmii Cântați has posted several new recordings of some of the Psalms in this collection on its YouTube channel. Here are a few of these posted recently. Incidentally, the Psalm conference in Oradea is only days away.
Here is Psalm 2:
Along with the copy of Goudimel's arrangements of the Genevan Psalms, I received as well a copy of a new psalter and hymnal, Treasury of Psalms and Hymns, Revised, which has just been published by NoteWorthy Music Services. Michael Owens, who sent me this, is compiler and editor. Like Cantus Christi, which I reviewed two years ago, it is an encyclopaedic collection of liturgical music covering several centuries and incorporating a range of traditions. In fact, it is almost certainly the most extensive and impressive collection I have come across, boasting 1,133 songs! As you might imagine, this makes for an exceedingly heavy volume, one which someone my age or older might find difficult to hold while standing throughout the course of several stanzas.
Nevertheless, what stood out for me in these three memorial services is the extent to which they focussed, not so much on the Queen's life and witness, but on the person of Jesus Christ whom she trusted as her Saviour. To be sure, there was some eulogizing, especially by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, during the funeral.
This week I received in the post a package from my friend Michael Owens containing among other things, a ring-bound copy of The Genevan Psalms, arranged by Claude Goudimel 1565, edited and adapted by Harry van Dop, Revised Mazmur Edition. The Genevan Psalms were originally meant to be sung a cappella by the 16th-century Reformed congregations, but only three years after its completion, Goudimel arranged them for four-part harmony. This collection originated with a similar collection published in Indonesia in 1987, which became popular in the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada.
If you speak or understand one of the western Romance languages, you may be able to make sense of much of this video, introducing this impressive-looking Romanian-language metrical psalter, the product of the collaborative effort of Nicolae Moldoveanu and Traian Dorz. I'd love to receive a copy of this. At the end is an announcement for the upcoming conference devoted to the Psalter to take place in Oradea, Romania, on 30 September and 1 October 2022.
Today a service of remembrance was held at St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, for Her Majesty the Queen. Because St. Giles is a congregation of the Church of Scotland, the service included portions of the Psalms. The worshippers sang the familiar Psalm 100 from the Scottish Psalter of 1650, All People that on Earth Do Dwell. The choir sang the opening sentences from Psalms 51:15 and 40:13/70:1. The presiding minister followed with the votum from Psalm 124:8. The choir then sang Psalm 116 to Anglican chant. Finally, the congregation sang Psalm 23 to CRIMMOND.
A conference devoted to singing the Psalms will take place in Oradea, Romania, on 30 September and 1 October 2022. Here is Jonathan Hunt issuing an invitation in English with Romanian subtitles: Invitație la Conferința despre cântul Psalmilor, de Jonathan Hunt.
Psalmii Cântați has posted another Romanian-language Psalm. This one is the very first, and it's a lovely rendition: Psalmul 1 cântat de Felicia Guriță din CÂNTĂRILE PSALMILOR (N. Moldoveanu & T. Dorz):
We know that Czech protestants once sang the Genevan Psalms, as indicated in a psalter and hymnal dated 1900 which I purchased in Prague in 1976. This collection uses the Czech versifications of Jiří Strejc (1536-1599). I doubt they are still remembered today, as Czechia appears to be one of the least church-going countries in Europe. However, the composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) knew the tune for Psalm 23 well enough to quote it repeatedly in his Czech Rhapsody, which you can hear below:
I found this blog via Twitter and thought I should link to it from my blog: Psautier de Genève. It is operated by Philippe Lacombe, who has posted an information page here: Qui je suis. Here is my translation of the page:
Married and father of two children, I studied Hebrew and Greek in pursuing distance courses at the Faculté Jean Calvin [Aix-en-Provence, France] for two and a half years.
It is with great interest that I took part in the digitization of the ancient translations of the Bible, notably the Ostervald version for its publication in 1996, and the versions of David Martin of 1707 and of Lausanne, which I posted online.
I am currently working on a new edition of the Bible in French under the direction of the Société Biblique Trinitaire [Trinitarian Bible Society].
As a lover of the Genevan Psalter, the collection of songs of the 150 Psalms translated at the beginning of the Reformation, I also digitized the 1729 version and added the musical parts.
Finally, I love to share short texts of protestant literature on my blog, Pensées 365, where you can find excerpts from sermons, meditations, and prayers for spiritual devotion.
This was posted on the Psalmii Cântați YouTube channel a year ago. It's a Romanian-language versification of Psalm 150 set to the Genevan tune, as arranged by The Psalm Project in the Netherlands. Sung by Anca, wife of Eugen Tămaș:
Yes, even the Christians of Romania, a largely Orthodox Christian country whose people speak a Romance language, sing metrical psalms. At right is a copy of their psalter, CÂNTĂRILE PSALMILOR, published by Editura Comorile Harului (Treasures of Grace Publishing), in 2000. As far as I can determine, it is made up largely of original texts set to verse by Traian Dorz and music composed by Nicolae Moldoveanu, famed church musician who, during the era of communist persecution, shared a prison cell with Richard Wurmbrand. This year marks the centenary of Modoveanu's birth. He died at a good old age in 2007.
Performances of these Psalms can be found at the YouTube channel, Psalmii Cântați, which was set up by Eugen Tămaș. Here is the description of the channel translated into English by Google:
The metrical psalm was the perfect vehicle for turning the Protestant message into a mass movement capable of embracing the illiterate alongside the literate. What better than the very words of the Bible as sung by the hero-King David? The psalms were easily memorized, so that an incriminating printed text could rapidly be dispensed with. They were customarily sung in unison to a large range of dedicated tunes (newly composed, to emphasize the break with the religious past, in contrast to Martin Luther’s practice of reusing old church melodies which he loved). The words of a particular psalm could be associated with a particular melody; even to hum the tune spoke of the words of the psalm behind it, and was an act of Protestant subversion. A mood could be summoned up in an instant: Psalm 68 led a crowd into battle, Psalm 124 led to victory, Psalm 115 scorned dumb and blind idols and made the perfect accompaniment for smashing up church interiors. The psalms could be sung in worship or in the market-place; instantly they marked out the singer as a Protestant, and equally instantly united a Protestant crowd in ecstatic companionship just as the football chant does today on the stadium terraces. They were the common property of all, both men and women: women could not preach or rarely even lead prayer, but they could sing alongside their menfolk. To sing a psalm was a liberation—to break away from the mediation of priest or minister and to become a king alongside King David, talking directly to his God. It was perhaps significant that one of the distinctive features of French Catholic persecution in the 1540s had been that those who were about to be burned had their tongues cut out first.The Heidelblog is the creation of R. Scott Clark.
Psalm 2 sung in French according to the arrangements of Claude Goudimel and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.
Along with the 150 Psalms, the Scottish Psalter of 1650 also contains 67 metrical paraphrases from elsewhere in the Scriptures. These have been a constant over the centuries, with the same number assigned to each paraphrase. Last sunday morning I heard a sermon preached on Hosea 6, and during the reading I immediately recalled to mind this versification of Hosea 6:1-4, which is numbered 30 in the Scottish Psalter:
Here are the words as found in my split-leaf psalter, but with the suggested tune of KILMARNOCK. Click on it to enlarge it.
Addendum: It seems that the scripture paraphrases were added to the Psalter only in 1781 and are not original to the 1650. I have a copy dated 1788 containing the paraphrases in addition to the Psalms. My copy was published only seven years after the addition of the scripture paraphrases to the collection.
In Romania one is far more likely to hear the Genevan Psalms sung in the Hungarian language, but here is Psalm 42 sung beautifully in Romanian.
We used to sing this version of Psalm 24 in our church, especially on sundays when the Lord's Supper was celebrated:
This revised collection comes in a paperback form with a deep burgundy cover. Unlike the first edition, it contains all the melodies as well as the texts which makes for a thicker volume running to just over 300 pages. The layout looks like this:
