Genevan Psalm 124

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

(Psalm 124:8, ESV)

One of the great benefits of the Reformation of the sixteenth century was the recovery of congregational singing.  Luther, Reformer both of church doctrine and worship practice, believed the pursuit of music was secondary only to the study of theology.  Thus music flourished in Lutheran circles and set a faithful precedent for other protestant churches.  Calvinistic congregations took to singing metrical psalms: psalms poetically paraphrased into the native tongue of the local church.  In the centuries following the Reformation, Reformed churches sang only psalms, without harmony or accompaniment.  Yet, the simple and unadorned music that originated in Calvin’s church in Geneva saw widespread popularity throughout Europe.  (Elizabeth I of England supposedly nicknamed the jaunty tunes “Geneva Jigs.”)

The music of the Genevan Psalter was composed and edited largely by Loys (Louis) Bourgeois, composer of the tune ‘Old Hundredth’ (TH 1), commonly sung to the Doxology text “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”  Within a few years, the Genevan Psalter was the official hymnal of the Genevan church and was so highly regarded that the Bourgeois himself was later arrested for altering the tunes.  Unfortunately, this event forced him to turn his back on the Genevan church and leave the city.

‘Old 124^th’, another of Bourgeois’s tunes, was composed early in the development of the Genevan Psalter and was carried to England and Scotland by the returning exiles that had earlier fled the persecutions of Mary Tudor.  Scottish Presbyterians in particular seem to have latched on to this stirring psalm setting.