Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/575

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BOURGEOIS.
559

chretienne Princesse Marguerite.' By 1539 he had completed his first instalment of thirty psalms, but up to that time they circulated in manuscript only. They are all found in a psalter published at Antwerp in 1541, and their text is there the same as that published by Calvin. Douen thinks that the varied readings are due to Pierre Alexandre, editor of the Antwerp Psalter, but it seems equally if not more probable that they represent, largely or wholly, the original text of Marot's manuscripts, revised by him when he published the 'Trente Pseaulmes,' about the beginning of 1542. The tunes to Calvin's own translations are German, four by M. Greiter and one by W. Dachstein. Calvin returned to Geneva in Sept. 1541, and shortly afterwards, in Feb. 1542, a psalter (professedly printed at Rome by the command of the Pope[1]) was published at Strasburg, containing, besides the psalms and other pieces of the collection of 1539, together with four psalms by other writers, the eighteen remaining psalms of those which Marot had translated up to that time (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 24, 37, 38, 104, 113, and 115) and his Paternoster. To the Paternoster and to eight of the psalms (4, 6, 9, 22, 24, 38, 104, and 113) new melodies were added. On these two collections the first edition of the Genevan Psalter was based, and was published at Geneva in 1542. It contains the thirty psalms of Marot with his Pater and Credo (a different one from that in the Strasburg edition of 1539 which is in prose), the five psalms of Calvin, and his Song of Simeon and Decalogue. Of the tunes, seventeen (1, 2, 3, 15, 25, 36, 46, 91, 103, 104, 114, 130, 137, 138, 143, the Song of Simeon and the Paternoster) are taken from the preceding Psalters, but all except three (36, 103, and 137) are more or less modified; twenty-two tunes are new, thirteen of them (4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 19, 22, 24, 32, 38, 51, 113, and the Decalogue) are substituted for the former melodies, eight (5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 37, and 115) are set to the psalms left with music in the pseudo-Roman Psalter, and one is adapted to Marot's Credo. In Nov. 1542 Marot arrived at Geneva, and there translated nineteen other psalms (18, 23, 25, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 79, 86, 91, 101, 107, 110, 118, 128, and 138) and the Song of Simeon, which, with the thirty previously published, make up what are commonly spoken of as the 'Cinquante Pseaumes.' These, with Marot's Decalogue, Ave, and Graces before and after meat, all with music, were added to the psalter in a new edition published at the end of 1543.

In this edition the text of Marot's earlier psalms was corrected by the author, and the Calvin's Song of Simeon and five psalms were replaced by Marot's new versions of the same.

In 1544 Marot died at Turin, and the Psalter remained unfinished until the work was resumed by the publication in 1551 of thirty-four additional translations by Beza, which were united in the following year to the forty-nine by Marot already in use. In 1554 six more psalms appeared, soon followed by another, and the Psalter was completed in 1562.

The following lists show the order in which the psalms were published in successive editions of the Genevan Psalter:—

1542. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 24, 32, 37, 38, 51, 103, 104, 113, 114, 115, 130, 137, 143, the Pater, and Credo, by Marot. 25, 36, 46, 91, 138, Song of Simeon, and Decalogue, by Calvin.

1543. The seven versions by Calvin were omitted, and the following by Marot added—18, 23, 25, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 79, 86, 91, 101, 107, 110, 118, 128, 138, Song of Simeon, Decalogue, Ave, and Graces.

1551. 16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 73, 90, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134,[2] all by Beza.

To these psalms the tunes were almost certainly adapted at the same time, but no copy of the Psalter containing them is known of a date anterior to 1554.

1554. The six appendix psalms of this year (52, 57, 63, 64, 65 and 111), and the additional one of 1555 (67) appeared without tunes.

In 1562 the psalter was completed by the addition of the remaining sixty psalms, proper tunes were assigned to thirty-eight of these as also to psalms 52 and 57, while the others, as well as the remaining appendix psalms of 1554–5 (63, 64, 65, 67 and 111) were sung to the melodies of other psalms.

The psalms thus added in 1562, with tunes, were—48, 49, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 74, 75, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 102, 105, 106, 112, 135, 136, 141, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150. Without tunes—53, 62, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 82, 95, 98, 100, 108, 109, 116, 117, 139, 140, 142, 144. Including, therefore, the Song of Simeon and the Decalogue, the Genevan Psalter contains in all 125 tunes, of which eighty-five were selected or adapted between 1542 and 1554, the rest in 1562.

The story which ascribes to Franc the editorship of the Genevan Psalter will be noticed in a separate article, but recent investigations in the archives of Geneva have clearly shown that the task of selecting and arranging the tunes was entrusted to Bourgeois, and an entry in the registers of the Council, dated July 28, 1552, which will be found quoted at length in the notice of Franc in this Appendix, distinctly states that Bourgeois had set to music the psalms of Beza, published the year before, and had arranged those already published in the earlier editions of the psalter.

A minute collation which M. Douen has made of these earlier editions enables us to see what Bourgeois did. In 1542 he adopted, with modifications, seventeen tunes from the Strasburg Psalters and added twenty-two new ones. In or before 1549 seventeen tunes were more or less altered and eight replaced by others. In 1551

  1. Hence known as the pseudo-Roman Psalter.
  2. The tune to this psalm is that known in England as the 'Old Hundredth.'