Psalmody for Calvinist Worship
To discuss the use of the psalter for worship in Dutch churches of the Netherlands, we must first take a look at some history of the country. The Reformation first arrived in the Netherlands around 1530 because a variety of dissenting Protestant sects were developing. Among these were followers of John Calvin, known as Calvinists.
During 1550-90, the Netherlands was ruled by Spain under the Catholic King, Philip II. He enforced anti-Protestant policies and gave power to local magistrates to detect and destroy these heretics because they were viewed as threats to the royal government. This sort of persecution, along with rising taxes and frustration with Spanish rule, led to one hundred years of violence, destruction, and death, with religion as the primary reason.
In 1648, war ended, and a Protestant Dutch Republic was formed. This Republic included only seven of the provinces of the Netherlands. The other provinces of North Brabant and Limburg remained a Roman Catholic area, and it was goverened by the States-General.
The main religion of the Dutch Republic was Calvinism, which was the theological tradition of John Calvin. The Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk) adopted his order and style for worship, including psalm singing. Calvin was French, and he arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1536. Soon he discovered that there was no congregational singing in the worship services.
Prior to the Reformation, the Catholic tradition required the average lay person to stand silent while the music was given to the priests and the cantors. The words were sung in Latin, a language incomprehensible to the congregation. The reformers in Geneva influenced the churches there to ban all music from worship so that there was no singing at all. Calvin, and other ministers, were concerned about the coldness of worship so attempted to introduce the congregational singing of Psalms.
A couple years later, he had the opportunity to minister in Strasbourg, to a church of French refugees. The German Protestant congregations there had been singing the psalms for about a decade and caught Calvin’s attention. He began creating a Psalter in French, and when he eventually returned to Geneva, he continued to develop it. This Psalter was a work in progress and finally reached completion in 1562.
The Genevan Psalter includes 49 texts from Clement Marot, a French poet, and 101 from Theodore Beza who was a professor in Geneva. The melodies were mostly new compositions by musicians Guillaume Franc, Louis Bourgeios, and Pierre Davantes. The psalter contains 124 different tunes, some being used for more than one Psalm. Several tunes, like the ones used for Psalm 80 and Psalm 141, were borrowed from Gregorian chants.
The intervals between the notes are small and each tune stayed within an octave. Rhythms are simple using half notes and quarter notes.
Calvin wanted the songs to be primarily for the people in the congregation to sing, and not the laity or the choir only. He taught that the congregation should sing in unison to emphasize that God’s people sing praise to the Lord with one voice.
The Genevan Psalter was orginially published in French, but was translated to Dutch by Pieter Datheen using the Genevan melodies in 1566. This Dutch version became the official hymnbook for the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.
Two well-known psalms from the Genevan Psalter are Psalm 42 and Psalm 134. This psalm uses the words to Psalm 134 in the Bible, but has the tune that we recognize as belonging to the Doxology. The words we sing to this tune are newer than the Genevan Psalter, having been written in the 1700’s.
Listen to Psalm 42
Listen to Psalm 134
Instead of using keys with majoy or minor chords, the psalms use modes. Represented among the Genevan melodies are Phrygian, like in Psalm 100
Mixolydian, like in Psalm 74
Aeolian, like in Psalm 72
Ionian, like in Psalm 97
In the first two years of publication, 27,000 copies of the 1562 Psalter were sold within a few years. The number of copies may well have reached 100,000 in over 30 editions, in addition to the thousands of copies printed in translation to nine languages, including Dutch. The psalter was an essential for practically every literate member of the Protestant congregations being formed all over Europe.
Singing the psalms in meter was at the heart of the communal prayer of God’s people in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition. Metrical psalmody is the particular gift of the Reformed tradition to the broader Christian community.
Resources used to write this blog post include:
Worship, Seeking Understanding by John D. Witvliet
Article: A Reformed Approach to Psalmody: The Legacy of the Genevan Psalter by Emily R. Brink
New Genevan Psalter edited by George van Popta, published in Canada
Recordings of Psalms were taken from the corresponding website to the New Genevan Psalter: genevanpsalter.com
