Psalms as the Engine of the Church with Susannah Black Roberts

Susannah Black Roberts: "Singing the Psalms, chanting the Psalms moves the plot of God's kingdom forward." What an intriguing thought! Here is the larger context: Psalms as the Engine of the Church with Susannah Black Roberts.

A new Dutch psalter: De Nieuwe Psalmberijming

One of the features of language is that it changes over time, usually slowly and incrementally, but sometimes surprisingly quickly, as in the shift from middle to modern English. It is good to keep this in mind as we look more closely at the new Dutch versification of the biblical Psalms produced in 2021. Called De Nieuwe Psalmberijming, it follows at least four previous versifications of the Psalms, as set to the historic Genevan tunes. But we should also be aware that liturgical language tends to lag behind contemporary usage, as I noted in this article more than a decade ago: Liturgy and archaic language. Thus many updates of liturgical material leave some archaisms untouched, primarily because parishioners are used to them and prefer to worship in familiar albeit older words. This explains the continued affection in some circles for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the King James Version of the Bible, the 1650 Scottish Psalter, and even the Revised Standard Version's retention of the old second-person-singular pronouns in addresses to God, a usage now in decline amongst English-speaking Christians.

Psalm 51 in Aramaic

This is a plaintive rendition of Psalm 51 (50 by Septuagint numbering) sung in Aramaic by the Trio Mandili. Who could fail to be moved by this?

Psalm 121: De Nieuwe Psalmberijming

Singing from the new Dutch versification of the Psalms: Psalm 121:

Advent I: Psalm 25 and Wachet Auf

Ancient tradition associates Psalm 25 with the First Sunday in Advent. Here is our new friend, the Rev. Detlef Korsen, singing the Genevan version of this Psalm while accompanying himself on guitar:

And while we are on the subject of Advent, here is Korsen singing Philip Nicolai's famous Advent hymn, Wachet Auf, or Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying, in its original rhythmic form:

New England Psalm Book, 1758

I recently heard from the Rev. Jeremy Bullen, of Wallace, Idaho, who alerted me to a website that he has posted devoted to the 1758 revision of the New England Psalm Book. The original Bay Psalm Book was published in 1640 and is generally regarded as the first English-language book printed in the Americas. This newer edition was the creation of the Rev. Thomas Prince (1687-1758), who pastored the Old South Church in Boston and was a supporter of the First Great Awakening of the 18th century. An archived version of this psalter can be found here as well.

Bullen has included a brief comparison of the two versions from Psalm 1:3, a list of metres, a list of possible tunes to match the metres, and metrical canticles from other parts of the Bible. In short, this is a psalter from which people can still sing, using the resources that he has provided. Thanks are due to Bullen for the work he has put into this website.

Psalm 51: Sweelinck

Here is the Gesualdo Consort singing Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck's arrangement of Genevan Psalm 51:

Everypsalm Psalter: a review

Here is a brief review of Jesse and Leah Roberts' Everypsalm Psalter, based on the complete digital version of the Psalter found here. I am assuming that the bound volume is identical to the pdf copy available for download. There are 250 pages in total covering all 150 Psalms, along with three indices: Psalms by Category, Psalms by Author, and Psalms by Theme/feel. Among the authors listed are included David, Asaph, Korah, Solomon, Moses, Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman the Ezrahite. The third index includes Psalms for Courage, Justice, Suffering, Gathered Worship, Rest, Dancing, and the Messiah.

Everypsalm Psalter

Just over a year ago, I called readers' attention to a pandemic-era project of singing through all 150 Psalms with original music under the general title of Poor Bishop Hooper's Everypsalm project. This was the work of Jesse and Leah Roberts, whose YouTube channel can be found here.

Happily, in response to listeners' demands, they have now produced a bound copy of the Everypsalm Psalter, which is now available for purchase. I hope to review this collection soon. Stay tuned.

Psalm 81 to 100's tune

A member of the Lovers of Metrical Psalmody Facebook group alerted us to this metrical psalm performed by the Robert Shaw Festival Singers: To God Our Strength. The text is a metrical version of Psalm 81 with music arranged by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, but, remarkably, it's sung (altogether too quickly) to the Genevan melody for Psalm 100. The recording was released in 1993.

Addendum: I have corrected one of the sentences above. Parker and Shaw arranged the music, but the text is from Henry Ainsworth's Psalter, from which the 17th-century community known to Americans as the Pilgrims sang. Here is the text of stanzas 1, 2, and 7:

To God our strength, shout joyfully;
To Jacob’s God shout triumphing.
Take up a psalm, and timbrel bring,
The pleasant harp with psaltery.
     
Blow up the trumpet at new‐moon:
In set time at day of our feast.
For it to Isr'el is an heast:
To Jacob’s God due to be doon.
    
Jehovah God of thee I am,
Which thee ascending up did guide
From land of Egypt. Open wide
Thy mouth, and I will fill the same.

A copy of the Ainsworth Psalter can be purchased here.

Psalm 103: Korsen

One more Genevan Psalm auf Deutsch by the Rev. Detlef Korsen:

Psalm 99: Bahasa Indonesia

Here is a group of Indonesian Christians singing Genevan Psalm 99 in their own language. The musical notation is fairly easy to read because it's based on numbers.

Psalm 113 to its original tune?

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's thesis is controversial and definitely open to question, but it is intriguing to think that her theory may have enabled us to recover the original tunes to which the biblical Psalms were set. Here is a particularly lovely example:

Here is an account of Haïk-Vantoura's apparent discovery broadcast over NPR in 1986:

More of Michael Levi's reconstructions of the Psalms according to Haïk-Vantoura's reading can be found here.

Psalm 100: Korsen

Here is one more psalm performed very nicely by the Rev. Detlef Korsen:

Genfer Psalter: the Psalms in German

Ever since Ambrosius Lobwasser (1515-1585) first rendered the Genevan Psalms in German, speakers of that language have sung from this historic collection, although perhaps not in great numbers. In recent months, the Rev. Detlef Korsen has been posting videos of himself singing from the Genevan Psalter. Korsen is a pastor in the Evangelish-lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers in the greater Bremen area of northwest Germany. The texts are from several sources. Some of the Psalms he sings a cappella, and others he accompanies with guitar. The full collection of his videos can be found here. Here he is singing Psalm 3:

Take some time to visit his YouTube channel and explore his posted videos of the Psalms.

Reformation celebration: two psalm paraphrases

Although the tradition of metrical psalmody is more associated with the Reformed than with the Lutheran tradition, Martin Luther himself penned a very few psalm paraphrases. The most familiar to us is undoubtedly A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, a free paraphrase of Psalm 46. Here it is in its original rhythmic form:

The second of Luther's psalm paraphrases is From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee, paraphrasing Psalm 130:

Psałterz Poznański: Psalms 22 and 68

I've been listening quite a bit to the new CD of music from the Psałterz Poznański. Here are two psalms posted on the Cithara Sanctorum YouTube channel, Psalms 22 and 68:

 

Psałterz Poznański: book and CD

Last month I wrote of meeting and spending time with Andrzej Polaszek, a Reformed pastor from Poznań, Poland, during his visit to North America. Last week I received in the mail from Polaszek a booklet containing music and fresh Polish-language texts for one-hundred Genevan Psalms, published in 2017, and a just-published CD containing recordings of 12 Genevan Psalms in Polish. The performing musicians include Andrzej and his wife Agata and three more members of the Polaszek family, along with several others. The instrumentalists play a selection of unusual instruments, some of which have mediaeval and renaissance origins. Among those listed are the romantic lute, Irish bouzouki, Renaissance mandora, hurdy-gurdy, zither, psaltery, alto and tenor rebec, and several different kinds of flutes and flute-related instruments.

How to read the Psalms for all they're worth

Here is a very fine article at Anglican Compass on How to read the Psalms for all they're worth, by W. David O. Taylor, a theologian at Fuller Seminary and author of Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life. He offers his advice in seven points. An excerpt:

2. Read the Psalms consistently, rather than occasionally and sporadically.

This was Eugene Peterson’s advice to me as a seminary student at Regent College in 1995: to read a psalm a day as a life’s habit. It’s also advice that Christians throughout the centuries have taken to heart. Consider then how you might read a psalm a day yourself. Begin with Psalm 1 and march your way to the end, to Psalm 150, and then start over.

Don’t become too anxious if you miss a day or two, however, or if you get bogged down with the longer psalms. The point isn’t to read the psalms perfectly. There’s no scorecard, thank God. The point is simply to read the psalms over and over again, so that they’ll have a chance to saturate our hearts and minds with the good words of God.

Of course, once you've started to read a psalm a day, you might then move on to take up the 30-day schedule in the Book of Common Prayer's Psalter.

Psalm 24, St. George's, Edinburgh

The Free Church of Scotland faithfully continues its longstanding practice of singing the biblical Psalter. Here is the Scottish Psalter's version of Psalm 24, sung to ST. GEORGE'S, EDINBURGH. Our former congregation often sang this as an entrance hymn during the celebration of the Lord's Supper.