A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Old Hundredth Tune, The

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A Dictionary of Music and Musicians
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Old Hundredth Tune, The
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1754032A Dictionary of Music and Musicians — Old Hundredth Tune, The


​OLD HUNDREDTH TUNE, THE. The great popularity of this tune in England and America has given birth to much discussion respecting its origin and authorship. The greater part however of what has hitherto been written on the subject is either purely conjectural or based on an imperfect knowledge of the facts. The recent researches of [1]Bovet, [2]Douen, and others into the history of the Genevan Psalter have cleared up almost all difficulties, and shown that it was in that work that the tune first appeared. A brief sketch of the history of the Genevan Psalter will be given in a supplemental notice of Louis Bourgeois.[3] For the present it is enough to say that the 'Old Hundredth' was the melody adapted to Beza's version of the 134th Psalm included in the first instalment of psalms, 34 in number, added by him to the Genevan Psalter in 1551. No copy of that Psalter containing the tunes to these psalms is known of earlier date than 1554, but there is little doubt that they were added to the psalms either at the time of publication of the latter or in 1552; and, as will be seen in another article, this date falls within the time when Bourgeois was musical editor of the Genevan Psalter—that is, from 1542 to 1557. To Bourgeois therefore the tune in its present form may be ascribed, but how far it is original is uncertain. The greater part of the melodies in the Genevan Psalter are known to be adaptations of secular tunes of the time, and the 'Old Hundredth' is, no doubt, one of the number. Douen cites a melody from 'Chansons du XVe Siècle publiées par G. Paris et A. Gevaert,' Paris, 1875, which commences as follows

{ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \key f \major \relative f' { \cadenzaOn f2 f f f e d c f e2. f4 g2 a s } }

to the words 'Il n'y a icy celluy Qui n'ait sa belle.'

It was a not uncommon practice of the old writers to construct new tunes by adding different terminations to the same fragment of older melody. The strain with which the 'Old Hundredth' commences seems to have been very popular from this point of view. We find it, with different endings, in 'Souter Liedekens ​ghemaect ter eeren Gods' (Pure Songs made to the honour of God), Antwerp,[4] 1540; in Utenhove's Dutch Psalter ('Hondert Psalmen Davids '), printed in London by John Daye in 1561; in Este's Psalter,' 1592, and elsewhere.[5]

The Genevan tune soon found its way to England, where it was set to Kethe's version of the 100th psalm, 'All people that on earth do dwell,' with which it has since remained indissolubly connected.

The name 'Old Hundredth' is peculiar to England.[6] The psalm was originally known as the 'Hundredth, but after the appearance of the New Version by Brady and Tate in 1696, the word 'Old' was added to the titles of the tunes continued in use from the preceding Psalter of Sternhold and Hopkins, to which no special names had been given. The name 'Savoy,' sometimes applied to the Old Hundredth in the last century, was derived, not, as Mr. Havergal supposes, from a vague fancy respecting its Savoyard origin, but from its use by the French congregation established in the Savoy, London, in the reign of Charles II. The original form of the Old Hundredth is as follows.

{ \time 4/4 \clef tenor \key f \major \cadenzaOn f1 f2 e d c f1 g a r a a2 a g f bes1 a g r f g2 a g f d1 e f r c' a f g2 bes a1 g f\longa \bar "||" }


Several variations of the tune are found in English and German tune-books, but chiefly in the value of the notes, the melody remaining unchanged. The version most commonly adopted in England in the present century is that in which all the notes, except the final note of each strain, are of equal length. This form however tends to produce monotony, and necessitates too slow a time, the tune being essentially jubilant in character. Its original form is in all respects the best, with perhaps a slight modification in the fourth strain for the sake of symmetry,[7] as in Ravenscroft's 'Booke of Psalmes,' 1621:

{ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \time 4/2 \key f \major \partial 1 \relative c'' { c1 | a2 f g bes | a1 g | f \bar "||" } }


An interesting monograph on the history of the Old Hundredth psalm-tune was published in 1854 by the Rev. W. H. Havergal, with an appendix of 28 specimens of the tune as harmonised by different composers from 1563 to 1847. In the light of our present knowledge, however, several of Mr. Havergal's conjectures and statements must now be regarded as obsolete.

See also the works of Bovet and Douen already cited.


Appendix:

​This tune, as well as others in the Genevan Psalter, has been so often erroneously ascribed to Goudimel, or the name of that composer appended to harmonies which are not his, that it will be interesting to give here a transcript of the melody by Bourgeois, 1552, as harmonized by Goudimel, 1565.

<< \override Score.BarNumber #'break-visibility = #'#(#f #f #f) \time 2/2 \new Staff << \key f \major \new Voice { \relative a' { \cadenzaOn \stemUp a1 a2 g g e d f1 e2 f1 \bar "|" f1 f2 f e a1 g f2 g1 \bar "|" d1 e2 f e a g1 g a \bar "|" f f d d2 g1 f e2 f\breve \bar "||" } } \new Voice { \relative c' { \cadenzaOn \stemDown c1 c2 c bes a a1 c c c d2 c c a d1 d d a c2 c c a b1 c c a c bes bes2 d c1 c c\breve } } >> \new Staff << \clef bass \key f \major \new Voice { \relative f { \override NoteHead #'style = #'petrucci \huge \cadenzaOn \stemUp f1 f2 e d c f1 g a | a a2 a g f bes1 a g f g2 a g f d1 e f c' a f g2 bes a1 g f\breve } } \new Voice { \relative f, { \cadenzaOn \stemDown f1 f2 c' g a d1 c f, f' d2 f c d bes1 d g, d' c2 f, c' d g,1 c f, f f bes g2 g a1 c f,\breve } } >> >>
In 1561 Kethe wrote versions of twenty-five psalms for the enlarged edition of Knox's Anglo-Genevan Psalter published in that year. One of these was the Long Measure version of Psalm C, 'All people that on earth do dwell,' to which the Genevan tune was then for the first time adapted.


  1. ↑ 'Histoire du Psautier des églises reformées,' Neuchatel and Paris, 1872.
  2. ↑ 'Clement Marot et le Psautier Huguenot,' 2 vols., Paris, 1878–79.
  3. ↑ See appendix, Bourgeois.
  4. ↑ In this, the earliest Flemish Psalter, all the psalms (excepting the 116th and the 118th, and also the Song of Simeon) are set to popular Flemish and French tunes. Psalm xix, which begins with the same strain as the Old Hundredth, is to the melody of—

    'Ick had een boelken utuercoren, die Ick met Herten minne,'
    I had chosen a lover whom I heartily loved.

  5. ↑ The tune adapted to Psalm xxv in the Genevan Psalter of 1551, replacing the melody to which that Psalm had been set in the previous editions, commences with a similar melodic progression—
    { \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \key bes \major \cadenzaOn \relative b' { bes1 a2 g f bes1 c2 d1 bes } }
  6. ↑ In America the tune is commonly called 'Old Hundred'; probably an English provincialism imported by some of the early colonists. In fact the writer has some recollection of hearing that this name was in use in some parts of England not many years since.
  7. ↑ The old psalter tunes being originally unbarred, strict symmetry between the strains was sometimes disregarded for the sake of effect.
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