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Hymnbooks of the Church of Scotland
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Hymnbooks of the Church of Scotland
Decisions concerning the conduct of public worship in the Church of Scotland are entirely at the discretion of the parish minister. As a result, a wide variety of musical resources are used. However, at various times in its history, the General Assembly has commissioned volumes of psalms and hymns for use by congregations.
The Scottish Psalter of 1564 was based on the first Anglo-Genevan Psalter which had been used by John Knox's congregation. The Scottish Psalter contained most of the tunes of the Anglo-Genevan Psalter and it was completed on the same principles to contain all 150 psalms. Neither of these included hymns. The text of this Psalter expresses the spirit of the original without undue pains to render the text literally. While only the melodies of the tunes were printed, part singing was certainly known, as there is a record of a four-part rendition of Psalm 124 being sung to welcome John Durie back to Edinburgh from exile in 1582. There were 30 metres in all: ninety-eight psalms were set to common metre, 10 to long metre, 6 to short metre and 4 to long metre (6 lines), and there were 26 metres for the other 32 psalms. Some editions of this Psalter printed in 1575 or later included up to 10 other pieces, but these were probably only intended for devotional purposes. Duguid has shown that the Scottish General Assembly closely guarded psalm publishing and had previously disciplined printers for editing the psalms (as had also been done in Calvin's Geneva).
The 1564 edition went through many changes that culminated with the 1635 version. Edited by Edward Millar, the 1635 Scottish Psalter included the very best of the psalm settings for the Sternhold and Hopkins psalms. This included four-part homophonic settings of many of the psalms (those texts that did not have a proper melody were assigned a melody from another psalm), several more complicated or polyphonic psalm settings (also known as Psalms in Reports), and settings of many of the so-called Common Tunes that had come to be used in the seventeenth century.
The last edition of the 1564 psalter with music was issued in 1640. However, there had been many attempts to supplant the 1564 edition, including those by none other than James VI/I. Even so, Scots clung to their beloved psalter until the Westminster assembly promised a potential union between the English and Scottish psalters. A complete psalter by Francis Rous, an English member of Parliament, was revised by the Westminster Assembly but did not satisfy the Scots. Over a period of 2 years and 4 months it was revised by direction of the General Assembly, and it has been calculated that about 40% of the lines are original to the Scottish revisors with only 10% from Rous and 30% from the Westminster Version. Accuracy of translation was in the forefront. This psalter continues in use until the present day in parts of Scotland (especially the Highlands), and around the world in some of the smaller Presbyterian denominations.
W. P. Rorison carried out a detailed comparison of the 1650 version with ten earlier psalters to trace every line. He was able to trace 4,846 lines to these ten sources.
In 1929, the music of the psalter was revised by the Church of Scotland to bring its harmonies into line with those in the revision of the hymnal. The psalter was usually printed at the front of the first two editions of the hymnal (1898, 1927), and throughout much of the 20th century there was a widespread tradition of beginning worship with a psalm before continuing in the hymn books. However, the most widely used version of the third edition did not have the psalter in the same volume, with the result that the full psalter has disappeared from the majority of Church of Scotland congregations.
The psalter contained all 150 psalms in their entirety, though obviously many of them were too long to be sung whole. In 1781 a selection of 67 paraphrases of Scripture was given permissive use for a year. Although never officially adopted, the paraphrases had significant use in succeeding years, mainly in the lowlands. Five hymns were inserted at this time without church authority. Reflecting a move from the simplicity and plainness of earlier Scottish worship in some later editions there was also a set of seven trinitarian doxologies ("To Father, Son and Holy Ghost..."), each for a different metrical pattern, which could be sung at the close of a psalm. These were printed together at the end of the psalms, and were intended to allow the Old Testament text to be sung in the light of the New.
All the psalms were present in common meter (CM), which meant that in principle any psalm could be sung to any psalm tune, though not every possible combination would have been regarded as good taste. Musical editions of the psalter were published with the pages sliced horizontally, the tunes in the top half and the texts in the bottom, allowing the two parts of the volume to be opened independently. The music section was arranged alphabetically by the traditional names of the melodies. Psalm 23, "The Lord's my shepherd", would typically be sung to tune 144 "Wiltshire" (tune "Crimond", written in 1872, becoming overwhelmingly popular from the 1930s), but could theoretically be sung to almost any other, the only restriction being the conventions of familiarity.
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Hymnbooks of the Church of Scotland
Decisions concerning the conduct of public worship in the Church of Scotland are entirely at the discretion of the parish minister. As a result, a wide variety of musical resources are used. However, at various times in its history, the General Assembly has commissioned volumes of psalms and hymns for use by congregations.
The Scottish Psalter of 1564 was based on the first Anglo-Genevan Psalter which had been used by John Knox's congregation. The Scottish Psalter contained most of the tunes of the Anglo-Genevan Psalter and it was completed on the same principles to contain all 150 psalms. Neither of these included hymns. The text of this Psalter expresses the spirit of the original without undue pains to render the text literally. While only the melodies of the tunes were printed, part singing was certainly known, as there is a record of a four-part rendition of Psalm 124 being sung to welcome John Durie back to Edinburgh from exile in 1582. There were 30 metres in all: ninety-eight psalms were set to common metre, 10 to long metre, 6 to short metre and 4 to long metre (6 lines), and there were 26 metres for the other 32 psalms. Some editions of this Psalter printed in 1575 or later included up to 10 other pieces, but these were probably only intended for devotional purposes. Duguid has shown that the Scottish General Assembly closely guarded psalm publishing and had previously disciplined printers for editing the psalms (as had also been done in Calvin's Geneva).
The 1564 edition went through many changes that culminated with the 1635 version. Edited by Edward Millar, the 1635 Scottish Psalter included the very best of the psalm settings for the Sternhold and Hopkins psalms. This included four-part homophonic settings of many of the psalms (those texts that did not have a proper melody were assigned a melody from another psalm), several more complicated or polyphonic psalm settings (also known as Psalms in Reports), and settings of many of the so-called Common Tunes that had come to be used in the seventeenth century.
The last edition of the 1564 psalter with music was issued in 1640. However, there had been many attempts to supplant the 1564 edition, including those by none other than James VI/I. Even so, Scots clung to their beloved psalter until the Westminster assembly promised a potential union between the English and Scottish psalters. A complete psalter by Francis Rous, an English member of Parliament, was revised by the Westminster Assembly but did not satisfy the Scots. Over a period of 2 years and 4 months it was revised by direction of the General Assembly, and it has been calculated that about 40% of the lines are original to the Scottish revisors with only 10% from Rous and 30% from the Westminster Version. Accuracy of translation was in the forefront. This psalter continues in use until the present day in parts of Scotland (especially the Highlands), and around the world in some of the smaller Presbyterian denominations.
W. P. Rorison carried out a detailed comparison of the 1650 version with ten earlier psalters to trace every line. He was able to trace 4,846 lines to these ten sources.
In 1929, the music of the psalter was revised by the Church of Scotland to bring its harmonies into line with those in the revision of the hymnal. The psalter was usually printed at the front of the first two editions of the hymnal (1898, 1927), and throughout much of the 20th century there was a widespread tradition of beginning worship with a psalm before continuing in the hymn books. However, the most widely used version of the third edition did not have the psalter in the same volume, with the result that the full psalter has disappeared from the majority of Church of Scotland congregations.
The psalter contained all 150 psalms in their entirety, though obviously many of them were too long to be sung whole. In 1781 a selection of 67 paraphrases of Scripture was given permissive use for a year. Although never officially adopted, the paraphrases had significant use in succeeding years, mainly in the lowlands. Five hymns were inserted at this time without church authority. Reflecting a move from the simplicity and plainness of earlier Scottish worship in some later editions there was also a set of seven trinitarian doxologies ("To Father, Son and Holy Ghost..."), each for a different metrical pattern, which could be sung at the close of a psalm. These were printed together at the end of the psalms, and were intended to allow the Old Testament text to be sung in the light of the New.
All the psalms were present in common meter (CM), which meant that in principle any psalm could be sung to any psalm tune, though not every possible combination would have been regarded as good taste. Musical editions of the psalter were published with the pages sliced horizontally, the tunes in the top half and the texts in the bottom, allowing the two parts of the volume to be opened independently. The music section was arranged alphabetically by the traditional names of the melodies. Psalm 23, "The Lord's my shepherd", would typically be sung to tune 144 "Wiltshire" (tune "Crimond", written in 1872, becoming overwhelmingly popular from the 1930s), but could theoretically be sung to almost any other, the only restriction being the conventions of familiarity.