Psalm 9: Psałterz Poznański

Here is another entry in the Psałterz Poznański, which was just posted today: Psalm 9, set to the proper Genevan melody. A very nice arrangement.

The Rev. Uri Brito gives us 10 Reason to Sing the Psalms. Reasons number six and ten:

Sixth, we should sing the Psalms because they re-shape us; they re-orient our attention. We are a people constantly being sanctified by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit has specifically inspired 150 psalms for our sanctification. How should we pray? How should we ask? How should we lament? The Psalms helps us to answer these questions, and thus shape us more and more after the image of Christ. . . .

Tenth, you should sing the Psalms because the world needs them. The world does not need a weak Gospel. She sees plenty of it already. She needs to hear a Gospel of a God who delights in praise, who will not allow evil to go unpunished, and who prepares a table for us.

Bono and Eugene Peterson on the Psalms

Eugene Peterson is well-known for his paraphrase, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, which was published in stages between 1993 and 2002. Bono is an Irish musician and lead singer of the band U2. Peterson and Bono have recently begun a collaboration on the Psalms. What will come of this we do not yet know, but here is a tantalizing preview:

Recovering the Psalms at the Reformation

Take a look at Timothy George's post from three days ago: Reading the Psalms with the Reformers. An excerpt: "The Reformation of the sixteenth century can be understood in various ways, but it was in essence a biblical revolution, at the heart of which were the Psalms." The subject of George's post is the first volume of Reformation Commentary on Scripture, compiled and edited by Dutch scholar Herman J. Selderhuis. This is a compendium of commentary on the Psalms by well-known Reformation-era Christians. The second volume is forthcoming.

George is the general editor of InterVarsity Press's multi-volume series Reformation Commentary on Scripture of which this volume is part.

Psałterz Poznański: Psalm 27

The Psałterz Poznański project continues with this performance of Psalm 27 set to the Genevan tune:

Dr. Bence Vas on the Genevan Psalter

This looks like a fascinating Open University lecture on the Genevan Psalms by Dr. Bence Vas. If only I could understand Hungarian! Any reader of this blog who knows the language is more than welcome to give us a summary of what he's saying in the comments section below.

Albrecht's 'Gloria!'

In addition to the biblical Psalms, the church has historically sung in its liturgy a number of ancient hymns based on scripture. One of these is the Gloria in Excelsis, which is a trinitarian elaboration of the angelic hymn in Luke 2:14. Also known as the Greater Doxology, it is the initial hymn sung in the historic liturgy of the western church, while it is a psalm of thanksgiving after Communion in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Orthodox churches it is sung in the morning prayer office, or Orthros.

Here is a wonderful setting composed by Sally K. Albrecht and sung by a choral ensemble over Speranţă TV, a Christian television station established in Romania in 2003. Note that the time signature is 7/8, a metre commonly used in Greek and other Balkan folk music.

Psalm 29: The Voice of the LORD

Three years ago I came up a fresh versification of Psalm 29 for which I composed two possible tunes, the first of which I determined was not easily sung by a congregation. Here is a recording I made last summer of this text as set to my second and more singable tune, VOX DOMINI:

Reformation: Ein' Feste Burg

Two years from today will mark the half-millennium of Luther's act of nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of the Schloßkirche in Wittenberg, beginning the Reformation. To mark the 498th anniversary of this world-changing event, I have recorded my own arrangement of the Reformer's celebrated metrical paraphrase of Psalm 46, Ein' Feste Burg:

Cantiques.fr: Psaume 47

'All that breathes with one accord': Psalm 150

Psalm 23 from the Genevan Psalter

This is my own arrangement and performance of Genevan Psalm 23:

Genfi Zsoltár 42

Few things are more pleasurable than hearing an Hungarian choir sing from the Genevan Psalter. This is Psalm 42:

Des Psaumes en français

I have just discovered these wonderful solo performances of the Genevan Psalms in French. I am posting five of these, with more to come.






Check out the Cantiques.fr website and youtube channel. Its approach to psalmody can be found here. According to its website, cantiques.fr is devoted to enriching church music in the protestant tradition.

'Not unto us': Psalm 115

Performed by the Ensemble Claude Goudimel:

Psaume 35: Goudimel

Claude Goudimel's arrangement of Psalm 135 is very nicely performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya, directed by Jordi Savall. It begins at 1.06 below.

Psaume 138, par beaucoup des compositeurs

Here is an exquisite performance of Genevan Psalm 138 by the Ensemble Sweelinck de Genève, with arrangements by various composers:

Psalms 121 and 8

Here are two more recently posted choral performances of the Genevan Psalter by Hungarian choirs.

The first is Kodály's haunting arrangement of Genevan Psalm 121, beautifully performed by the Református Kántus of Debrecen:


The second is a stirring and somewhat dissonant arrangement of Psalm 8 composed by German-Hungarian composer Zsolt Gárdonyi:

Liturgical reform and the Psalter

Benedict Constable is not keen on what he sees as the violence done to the Catholic liturgy in the 1960s and '70s: The Omission of “Difficult” Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter.

In addition to the unprecedented novelty of praying the Psalter over four weeks rather than in the course of a single week, there was the equally unprecedented novelty of skipping verses that had been deemed "difficult" or problematic for modern Christians.

No, yes and no. No, there is nothing novel about praying the Psalms on a monthly rather than a weekly basis. Already in the 16th century the Book of Common Prayer prescribed the singing or reciting of the Psalter over a 30-day period. This is a practice I have followed for quite some time now.

But, yes, the abridgement and censoring of the Psalms is definitely problematic. Whereas the 1962 Canadian BCP does this with reckless abandon, the 1985 Book of Alternative Services subsequently restored this lost integrity to the Psalter.

But once again, no, abridging the Psalms is hardly unprecedented. In the eastern churches the singing of a full psalm in the course of the liturgy was gradually replaced by an excerpt, or prokeimenon (προκείμενον), of the psalm. In the west this became known as the gradual. And even in the Reformed churches, where the congregation sings metrical psalmody, they are likely to sing only a few stanzas at a time, particularly if the Psalm is a lengthy one.

Nevertheless, Constable's basic point is well taken. Where the Psalter is abridged and where even the possibility of singing through it in its entirety has been withdrawn, the faith of the people is likely to degenerate into mere sentimentality.

Kodály's 150

For thirty years I've been an aficionado of Zoltán Kodály's arrangements of the Genevan Psalms. Here is a lovely performance of his Psalm 150 posted as recently as April. Dénes Szabó conducts the choir.