User:BarryJ/Proposed Category:Psalm-Tunes

A proposed Category:Psalm-Tunes

By Barry Johnston, user:Bcjohnston523, last revised 12 October 2015.

Introduction

Sacred music based on the Psalms and other Bible passages, written in three or four vocal parts, and designed to be sung a cappella without instruments, is categorized as Psalmody by many authors. For example,

"The term "psalmody" is applied to that body of sacred song which is composed of metrical versions of the psalms, wherein they are adapted to modern methods of singing. It generally includes, also, similar paraphrases of other portions of Scripture.

The subject is an immensely large one of itself, and its literature most extensive. Julian, in his Dictionary of Hymnology, gives a list of three hundred and twenty-six separate publications, of substantially the entire Psalter, in English alone; besides about one hundred and twenty minor versifications. To these must be added, before exhausting the catalogue, similar attempts in other languages and also the vast number of songs ranking simply as 'hymns,' but virtually belonging to psalmody.

. . .

It is a very large and serious question whether the displacement of psalmody by hymnody has not been extreme, and whether it may not be to the improvement of public worship and of the spiritual life to return more closely to former customs and give the 'Psalter' the place which it ought to hold in relation to the 'Hymnal,' a place original and supreme." (Breed 1903)

Proposal

Category:Psalm-Tunes

Description

A psalm-tune is a sacred song, based on a metrical paraphrase of a Psalm or other Bible passage, written in three or four vocal parts, for a cappella singing. Most psalm-tunes have lyrics associated with them: if a psalm-tune was written for a Psalm, then it has lyrics that go with it. In some cases, however, the tune was written to a specific meter, designed to be applied to any Psalm or other sacred text with the same meter.