From church to stage: nurturing a culture of congregational song

While the Bible speaks of praising God with musical instruments (e.g., Psalms 147, 149 and 150), there is an ancient tradition of unaccompanied singing in the church. The Orthodox Churches, Reformed Presbyterians and the Churches of Christ sing a cappella in their worship services. Such groupings out of principle exclude musical instruments from their liturgies. Although many of us would not go quite that far, there is nevertheless much to be said for the argument Justin Taylor, drawing on John Piper and James K. A. Smith, makes in noting “The Difference between Congregational Worship and a Concert.” Taylor quotes Smith:

Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there’s nothing wrong with concerts! It’s just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice–and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of “performing” the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can’t hear ourselves sing–so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become “private,” passive worshipers.

It might seem odd to jump from liturgy to the theatre section of the New York Times, but this report is a marvellous witness to the power of a culture of congregational song in one segment of the American church: Something Happened on the Way to Bountiful: Everyone Sang Along. Cicely Tyson currently appears in a Broadway revival of the Horton Foote play, The Trip to Bountiful, playing Mrs. Carrie Watts, a character played so wonderfully by the late Geraldine Page in the screen version nearly three decades ago. At one point Tyson sings Fanny Crosby and Phoebe Knapp’s familiar gospel hymn, “Blessed Assurance.”

From the first note, there’s a palpable stirring among many of the black patrons in the audience, which the play, with its mostly black cast, draws in large numbers. When Ms. Tyson jumps to her feet, spreads her arms and picks up the volume, they start singing along. On some nights it’s a muted accompaniment. On other nights, and especially at Sunday matinees, it’s a full-throated chorus that rocks the theater.

“I didn’t realize they were doing it until someone remarked to me how incredible it was that the audience was joining in,” Ms. Tyson said in a recent interview, referring to her preview performances. “I said, ‘Where?’ I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear it.”

After the play opened, on April 23, she began tuning in. “At that point, I was relaxed enough to let other things seep in,” she said. “It was absolutely thrilling.”

Thrilling but unexpected. Under normal circumstances the Broadway experience does not include audience participation, even when catchy songs from classic musicals are being performed.

Some decades ago, at a worship conference at Calvin College, I heard someone remark that Christians are among the few people who regularly sing together in a culture which has so thoroughly professionalized the music “industry.” A vibrant culture of congregational song is something we should continue to nurture in our churches lest it be suppressed by the ubiquitous choirs and praise bands that have reshaped the liturgy in so many settings. And if we do so, it may just manage to spill over into the rest of our lives, even into such unlikely venues as Broadway!

Stolz: Psalm 83

Our friend Ernst Stolz continues his recording pilgrimage through the Psalms, with Psalm 83 his latest contribution. I love the organ and recorder combination. However, to be quite honest, I find it difficult to warm up to the crumhorn, whose sound too closely resembles that of a kazoo for my comfort. But let the listener judge for herself.

Fantasia on Psalm 47

The actual title is Fantasy and Fugue on a theme by Goudimel for Organ Duet, by Rachel Laurin, performed last September by Marnie Giesbrecht and Joachim Segger. This was commissioned by the Edmonton RCCO Special Enhancement Fund in Edmonton, Alberta. The title should perhaps reference Louis Bourgeois rather than Claude Goudimel, who merely arranged the melody for the Psalm. An impressive performance all round.

Hungary sings God's praise: Psalms 42 and 138

In Hungary it seems that even Baptists sing the Genevan Psalms, a wonderful example for Baptists elsewhere in the world. Here is the Vox Nova Baptist Male Choir singing two stanzas of Psalm 42 but only one of 138, undoubtedly leaving the audience wishing for more:

Update: Psalm 66

I have just posted my 82nd Genevan Psalm versification, namely, Psalm 66. This psalm is one of thanksgiving and celebration for God's deliverance of his people, especially in the exodus from Egypt, which suggests its use in the Passover liturgy (see verse 6). Indeed, the authors of this wikipedia article tell us that within Judaism Psalm 66 is "recited on the second day of Passover in some traditions and the sixth day in others."

Given the spiritual connections between Passover and the Christian Pascha, it is not surprising that it should find its way into the Easter liturgy of the church as well. In fact, the superscription in the Septuagint translation of the psalm, numbered 65 there, runs: ωδή ψαλμού [αναστάσεως], that is, "an ode of a psalm [of resurrection]," the bracketed word perhaps a later christian liturgical interpolation. Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon observes that the first four lines of this psalm occur in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for Pascha, which was just celebrated this past sunday in the Orthodox churches. Here is my own versification of verses 8 and 9:

Now bless our God, you earthly peoples;
let all your praise to him resound,
for he keeps us among the living
and placed our feet on stable ground.

In the Genevan Psalter, Psalm 66 shares the same tune with Psalms 98 and 118, the latter of which is also sung at Easter. All three are psalms of celebration breathing a similar spirit of thanksgiving to God for his mercies. The tune is one of the better-known and more durable of the Genevan Psalter, with the eucharistic hymn, Bread of the World in Mercy Broken, being set to it. Revisiting this tune persuaded me to make a very modest alteration of the arrangement. The entire score can be found here.

Psalm 96

I have just posted my own performance of Genevan Psalm 96 on my Byzantine Calvinist youtube channel. At some point I hope to have access to better recording equipment, but this is the best I can do for now, I think.

Recording the Psalms

Our friend Ernst Stolz has now made it as far as Psalm 80, leaving only 70 more to go. If he keeps up the current pace, he will finish recording all the psalms by 8 September 2014. When that day arrives, we should all down a good Dutch beer to celebrate.

Congregational singing: Psalm 138

The Canadian Reformed Churches are virtually the only churches in North America that sing from the Genevan Psalter in its entirety on a regular basis. Frank Ezinga posted this rendition of a CanRef congregation singing Psalm 138, whose tune seems to have been the basis for the familiar hymn melody, MIT FREUDEN ZART. Notice the lag between the organist's entrance and the congregation's entrances at the beginning of phrases. I first encountered this at a Christian Reformed Church in Hamilton 25 years ago, and it drove me crazy at first. My understanding is that this is the way congregations sing in the Netherlands, but it takes getting used to by those unfamiliar with it.

Ali Ufki and the Psalms

The title of this book in Turkish is Ali Ufki ve Mezmurlar, or Ali Ufki and the Psalms. The author, Cem Behar, teaches in the Department of Economics at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Although his principal professional interests are in economics, and demographic and social history, scrolling down his curriculum vitae reveals an apparently unrelated series of publications on traditional Ottoman and Turkish music, of which this book is one. Such an avocation is nearly as incongruous as an academic political scientist taking an interest in the Genevan Psalms!

This book was published in 1990. Those of us with an ongoing interest in Ali Ufki's work, but who know no Turkish, would love to see it translated into English. Something to hope for in the future.

Singing the Psalms through adversity — in Turkish!

God’s people have sung the Psalms for millennia, especially in dark times when it seems that he has abandoned them. One young man nearly four hundred years ago found himself in a horribly difficult situation. His name was Wojciech Bobowski (c. 1610—1675), a Polish Reformed Christian who at the age of eighteen (or perhaps as old as twenty-eight, depending on the year of his birth) was kidnapped by the Tatars during one of their occasional raids into his homeland. Sources differ on his birthplace, some pointing to the village of Bobowa (hence Bobowski) and others to Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). During his childhood and early youth, he had come to know the Bible thoroughly and to sing the Genevan Psalms, apparently in his native language.

Because Bobowski was intellectually brilliant and an accomplished musician and linguist, the Tatars sold him as a slave to the Ottoman Sultan. In an act reminiscent of Pharaoh’s promotion of the biblical Joseph, the Sultan recognized his gifts and elevated him to the positions of court musician, treasurer and translator. Bobowski at least nominally converted to Islam and came to be known as Ali Ufki. Yet even if his conversion was genuine, he did not leave behind his interest in, and apparent love for, the Bible, which he translated into the Turkish language, in which it came to be known as Kitabı Mukaddes, or “Holy Book.” Well into the twentieth century Ali Ufki’s Bible was the only translation available in the Turkish language.
Ali Ufki also translated the Church of England’s catechism and the works of Hugo Grotius and Jan Comenius into Turkish. He eventually gained his legal freedom and lived out his years in Egypt as a dragoman, or diplomatic interpreter.

Yet it is his translation of the first fourteen Genevan Psalms into Turkish for which Ali Ufki is best remembered today. As it turns out, the distinctive modal flavor of the Genevan tunes made them well-suited for adaptation to the musical system used in the Ottoman Empire. This enabled him to publish his collection, Mezmurlar (Psalms), in 1665. We do not know whether he ever intended to translate the entire Psalter and, if so, why he stopped at 14. Nevertheless, in the first decade of this century increasing numbers of musical performing groups began paying attention to them.

For example, in 2005 the German musical group Sarband, in conjunction with the King’s Singers, produced a recording titled, Sacred Bridges: Christian, Jewish and Muslim Psalm Settings. Featuring Ali Ufki’s renditions of Psalms 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9, most of which are sung in both French and Turkish, this recording brings together two quite divergent musical traditions, and the overall effect is little short of astounding. Employing Turkish instruments, Louis Bourgeois’ sturdy tunes take on the unmistakable flavour of typical Near Eastern music. In fact, a youtube video performance of at least one of these comes complete with whirling dervishes, an addition that would leave the typical Dutch or Hungarian churchgoer reeling.


Other recent recordings include The Psalms of Ali Ufki and One God: Psalms and Hymns from Orient & Occident.

How well are Ali Ufki’s Psalms known amongst contemporary citizens of the Turkish Republic? Turkey is, of course, a largely Muslim country with a secular constitution enforced by a nervous military fearful of traditional religious loyalties. Christians coexist uneasily under the regime in Ankara. Whether they sing from Ali Ufki’s abbreviated Psalter I cannot say.

However, I received one more surprise in my research into Ali Ufki. When I mentioned his name to my father, who was born in the Greek Orthodox community in Cyprus, he recognized it immediately and said that he knew his work well, especially his Turkish-language Bible.

It is commonly believed that western Asia Minor, heartland of today’s Turkey, was the first place on earth to have a Christian majority during the Roman era. It would be marvelous if God, in his providence, saw fit to use Ali Ufki’s Mezmurlar to advance his kingdom in this once but no longer Christian land.

David T. Koyzis has taught politics at Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario, for just over a quarter of a century, and is the author of the award-winning Political Visions and Illusions. His next book on authority, office and the image of God is forthcoming from Pickwick Publications, a division of Wipf & Stock. This column appeared in the April 8 issue of Christian Courier as part of his monthly “Principalities & Powers” column.

Singing the Psalms through adversity: the Czechs

The following appeared in the 11 March issue of Christian Courier as part of my monthly "Principalities & Powers" column. I have, of course, written on this subject before in this space.

In November 1976 I was privileged to visit what was then called Czechoslovakia and its capital city, Prague. Although the communists were still in power and the weather was cold and gloomy during my stay, I fell in love with this beautiful 14th-century urban jewel, which managed to glitter despite the austere Stalin-era buildings at its periphery. As a child I had grown up hearing one of my mother’s favourite musical pieces, Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava, or Moldau, a tone poem dedicated to the river on which Prague is built. Thus I was thrilled finally to walk across the fabled Charles Bridge spanning the waterway that had inspired the 19th-century composer.

For an amateur musician Prague is a treat, as its residents glory in the music of Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů and many others. Stepping into a church one Sunday I heard a soloist singing two of Dvořák’s Biblical Songs, which I had worked up in my undergraduate voice lessons and had come to love. Dvořák wrote these haunting songs based on the Psalms while in the United States, after learning of the death of his friend and conductor, Hans von Bülow, and of the imminent death of his own father back in Europe. Not surprisingly, the grieving composer turned to the Psalms for comfort.

While in Prague I visited more than one antiquarian book shop, purchasing an 1845 Czech New Testament and Psalms. (In retrospect I’ve come to recognize the irony in my taking a Bible out of a communist country when so many other Christians were taking risks to bring Bibles in.)

But it was another purchase at one of those stores that I keep returning to decades later. This was a small, thick volume called Malý Kancionál, or Little Hymnal, published in 1900 by the Unity of the Brethren, also variously known as the Bohemian Brethren, the Moravian Brethren and the Unitas Fratrum, founded by Jan Hus at the start of the 15th century. On the front cover is a stylized illustration of a chalice, a prominent Husite symbol, stemming from their championing the right of the laity to receive the Eucharistic cup along with the bread to which ordinary believers were at that time restricted. Inside the covers I found a complete metrical psalter, along with some 350 hymns – a psalter hymnal, in short. This sat on my shelf for nearly a decade before I discovered the significance of this book. The 150 Psalms are in fact set to the Genevan tunes, as used in the Swiss, Dutch, Hungarian and other Reformed churches. I had had no idea that Czechs had ever sung these, but obviously some did. Where did they come from?

A few years ago I learned the full story. Jiří Strejc (also known as Georg Vetter, 1536-1599), was a Brethren minister born in Zábřeh in Moravia. Strejc studied in Tübingen and Königsberg, where he came into contact with the Psalter of Ambrosius Lobwasser, a professor of jurisprudence at the university there. Strejc was so favourably impressed by Lobwasser’s German translation of the Genevan Psalter that he decided to model his own Czech versification on it, an undertaking he completed in 1587. Strejc is probably best known for his German-language hymn text, Mit Freuden Zart, familiar in English as Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above, the tune to which comes from the Bohemian Brethren’s Kirchengesänge (1566) and bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Genevan Psalm 138. Whether Strejc and Lobwasser ever met I have been unable to determine, but the latter’s psalter would come to influence the liturgical life of Czech protestants by way of Strejc.

The modern Czech Republic is a largely secular society with abysmally low rates of church attendance, a condition undoubtedly exacerbated by four decades of communist misrule. Nevertheless, possessing such a rich heritage in Dvořák’s Biblical Songs and Strejc’s metrical psalter, Czech Christians have a solid basis on which to reinvigorate their country’s tepid church life six centuries after Jan Hus’s abortive efforts at reformation. May God grant that Hus’s work finally come to fruition in the churches of the Czech Republic.

Tim Nijenhuis' Psalms

My Hamilton neighbour Tim Nijenhuis has just completed his own piano arrangements of all of the Genevan Psalm melodies, titled Genevan Melodies for Piano - Omnibus, which is available at his genevatunes.com website. I've not yet seen the collection, but I hope and pray that it will find a receptive readership beyond his own church denomination. I have added his website to the links page of my own website.

Praying the Psalms: a scriptural rosary

Nearly a year and a half ago I wrote of the origins of the rosary, a form of piety long associated with the Roman Catholic Church: The decline of psalm-singing: the rosary. I noted then that the rosary had its origins in the monastic practice of praying the 150 Psalms and called attention to two efforts to reconnect the rosary with the biblical Psalter. Here is another that is worth exploring: The Scriptural Rosary (Psalms), sponsored by Presentation Ministries. Many would, of course, wish to alter the titles of the fourth and fifth glorious mysteries, and perhaps use another Bible translation, but this might just be a form of rosary that even Reformed Christians could profitably pray.

Genevan Psalms in Korean

I have now posted on the links page of my website a link to the Genevan Psalter in the Korean language, along with a passable English translation courtesy of the google translator. The texts, music scores and midi files for the Psalms themselves can be found by clicking on the table on the front page (the layout of which appears, incidentally, to have been patterned after the table on the front page of my own website). The harmonizations are by Claude Goudimel. This now complete collection is a marvellous resource for God's people in Korea. May it serve to advance his kingdom in that extraordinary east Asian country.

Publisher found

Although this is not altogether relevant to the subject matter of this blog, I am nevertheless pleased to announce that my second book, provisionally titled, We Answer to Another: Authority, office and the image of God, will be published by Pickwick Publications, a division of Wipf & Stock in Eugene, Oregon. Here is a brief abstract of the book:

Many observers tend to conflate authority and power, even when they give lip service to the difference between these two, by identifying authority with one or more of the various capacities at our disposal. Similarly many are inclined to view authority and freedom as, if not outright polarities, then dialectically related. By contrast, my argument is that authority is co-extensive with responsible agency and is resident in an office given us at creation. Moreover, when we encounter authority, we encounter nothing less than the image of God, which always points beyond itself. This central authoritative office is in turn manifested in a variety of offices related to the communities of which we are part.

Here is the table of contents as currently projected:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I: INTRODUCTION: DEFINING THE PROBLEM
II: AUTHORITY AND POWER
III: AUTHORITY AND AUTONOMY
IV: AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMACY
V: OFFICE: THE KEY TO AUTHORITY
VI: THE PLURIFORMITY OF AUTHORITY
VII: EPILOGUE: AUTHORITY AND LOVE

These details, including the title, are, of course, subject to modification. I will keep readers posted on the progress of the book as it makes its way through the publication process. Stay tuned.

Update: Psalm 53, 69 and 70

Our friend Jungwon Hwang has posted another performance of a Psalm, this one the 53rd, which is of course virtually identical to Psalm 14.


And two more from Ernst Stolz: Psalms 69 and 70, whose tunes are identical to those of 51 and 17 respectively.

The Huguenot battle anthem: Psalm 68

Ernst Stolz' recording journey through the Psalms has now brought him to Psalm 68, famous as the anthem of the French Reformed Christians in their struggle with their persecutors. This is one of the most durable of the Genevan tunes and seems to have had an influence on the familiar 17th-century tune, LASST UNS ERFREUEN, often paired with the text, All Creatures of Our God and King.

The Hungarian Reformed Church

Many North American Christians are unaware that the Reformation had an impact in east central Europe. Hungary was one of the countries affected by it, and this influence has lasted to the present. The Reformed Church in Hungary has a number of unique characteristics setting it apart from other churches. Its confessional standards are the ecumenical Heidelberg Catechism and the Second Helvetic Confession. It is one of only two explicitly Reformed churches to have bishops, although these bishops are little more than district superintendents and make no claim to be in apostolic succession. In fact, as its website puts it, "the church exists in its congregations." It is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. As the map indicates, the Reformed Church encompasses congregations scattered throughout the pre-1920 Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, which extend from the Adriatic in the west to the Carpathian Mountains in the east, and from the borders of Poland in the north to those of Serbia in the south. In Hungary proper Reformed Christians make up the second largest church body after the Roman Catholic Church, while in Romanian Transylvania, they make up the largest Hungarian-speaking church denomination.

Why are Reformed Christians so concentrated in the east? These were the lands controlled by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, whereas western Hungary was under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. The Habsburgs imposed the Counter-Reformation within their territories, while the Ottoman authorities were rather more tolerant of religious diversity within their lands. (Recall that they had taken in the Jews expelled from Ferdinand and Isabella's Spain in 1492.) Thus the Reformation flourished in the latter but was suppressed in the former.

A dozen years ago I guest lectured at one of Redeemer's sister universities. There I encountered a student in one of the classes who had a Hungarian name but carried a Romanian passport. He was a Reformed Christian who lived in a region of Romania with an ethnic Hungarian majority. Despite his Romanian passport, he told me that he felt himself to be Hungarian, which, as I understand it, is not atypical of the Hungarian-speaking populations in Romania. Thus to be a Reformed Christian in that country brings with it a Hungarian identity as well.

The geographic distance between the Hungarian Reformed and other Reformed Christians is undoubtedly exacerbated by linguistic distance as well. Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric language related to Finnish and Estonian but completely unrelated to the Indo-European languages surrounding it in central Europe. I have considerable admiration for such people as Frank and Aria Sawyer, who teach at the Sárospatak Reformed Theological Academy and long ago mastered this difficult language.

In North America the Hungarian Reformed are represented in two bodies: the Hungarian Reformed Church in America and the Calvin Synod, a confessional body within the United Church of Christ. Reformed Christians in Hungary still sing the Genevan Psalms in Albert Szenczi Molnár's 16th-century versifications. If their North American counterparts have given this up, they would certainly do well to re-appropriate a tradition that has served their brethren in the old country so well over the centuries. If they should ever look for a usable English translation, I would be happy to provide them with one, however partial it may be at present.

Incidentally, although I have no known close Hungarian family relationships, my genealogical records indicate that my wife, daughter and I are all lineal descendants of Kings Geza I through Istvan V of Hungary.

Molnár's psalter online

I have recently been alerted to the existence of a scanned copy of the Psalterium Hungaricum of 1607, containing the texts of Albert Szenczi Molnár's Hungarian versifications of the 150 Psalms and the Song of Simeon from Luke 2:29-32. Once you are in the site, click on the OMNIA EX UNO icon until you are at the first Psalm. Then click on the word Fotó at the upper centre of the screen to see the first of the scanned pages. Then click on the right arrow above the image to continue through the scanned volume. This was posted in 2007 in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of this edition.

Update: Goudimel and Martinů

Two more Goudimel arrangements of the Psalms from Ernst Stolz. Psalm 66, of course, has the same melody as Psalms 98 and 118, while Psalm 67 shares its tune with Psalm 33.



The 20th-century composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) composed his Česká rapsodie (Czech Rhapsody), Cantata for Baritone, Mixed Chorus, Orchestra and Organ, H. 118, in 1918. At the end of the following movement Martinů quotes the Genevan tune of Psalm 23. I've not yet heard the entire piece, but I understand that at one point the baritone sings Jiří Strejc's text of this psalm.