• Startseite
• Literatur
• Noten
• Noten 4-stimmig
• Goudimel, Claude: 3 Psalm Settings (1568)

Goudimel, Claude: 3 Psalm Settings (1568)

for 4 voices or instruments.

These three Huguenot psalm settings come from Les Cent Cinquante psaumes de David nouvellement mis en Musique a quatre parties, par. C. Goudimel, Paris, 1568. This is one of several collections of French psalm settings by Goudimel: a book with an identical title had been published in 1564, consisting mostly of settings in note-for-note harmony, with the tune in the tenor part. The melodies and texts used by Goudimel had previously been printed in Les Pseaumes mis en rimefrancoise Par Clement Marot, & Theodore de Beze... De l'imprimerie de Michel Blanchier, Geveva, 1562. In the present three settings the tune is in the superius, though other pieces in the collection have the melody in the tenor. Only the first stanza of each psalm is underlaid in Goudimel's print: the complete text supplied here is from the above-mentioned Geneva print of 1562. Those familiar with Anglican liturgy will recognise the tune of Psalm CXXXIV, which is still sung in some English-speaking countries to the words "All people that on earth do dwell".
Claude Goudimel (c.1515-1572) was active both as a composer and a publisher: in the 1551 he started proof-reading for Nicolas de Chemin in Paris, and later became his partner. From 1557 he lived in the Huguenot city of Metz, which perhaps explains his interest in French-language psalms. He died in 1572 in the St. Bartholomew's massacre in Lyons, in which so many Huguenots met their end.
In this edition the original note values have been retained; an occasional editorial accidental appears above the stave, printed small: these apply to the one note only. Psalm CV has been transposed down a fourth, to bring it into line with the other pieces (an alternative version of these pieces a fourth higher (i.e. at the original pitch of Psalm CV), is available as EML 313a).