John Calvin and the Music of the Reformation

John Calvin and the Music of the Reformation

Christopher Meredith

12 December, 2001

In the 16^th Century, Europe saw the beginning of a movement in the Christian Church whose influence would be felt around the world. Led by many men of faith, the Reformation was a time of change and reawakening for the church. Among the reformers was John Calvin, a French theologian whose views of God and the world were revolutionary for his time, and remain so even today. These views had a profound effect upon the shaping of the reformed church. Considered by many to be Calvin's crowning achievement, the Genevan Psalter heavily impacted the church and the future of music.

John Calvin became the pastor of the church in Geneva, Switzerland in 1536 and in that year published his monumental treatise Institutes of the Christian Religion. Interestingly, this work contained no developed theology on the use of music in publish worship. The first published indication of John Calvin's beliefs regarding music came in 1537 in his Articles for the organization of the church and its worship in Geneva. In this document, he prescribed that the worship of the church include singing the Psalms of the Bible.¹

Calvin believed that the singing of the Psalms had special value in the worship of the New Covenant church. The Psalms have different styles, some being outright praises and others being heartfelt prayers. Calvin believed that Psalm singing led worship by praising the Lord and by inspiring in the congregation a desire to pray in the same way. He also recognized the value of unison singing in the way it intensified the congregation's sense of community.²

According to Calvin, the combination of words and music is among the most powerful influencers of human emotion. Because of this, the words must be comprehensible. Therefore, any text sung in worship would need to be in the vernacular language and be set to a unison melodic line.³ In adding music to text, the music must serve as a vehicle for the text, not act as a barrier to it. Therefore, instrumental accompaniment was unnecessary because, as Calvin put it, instruments “only amuse people in their vanities.” the congregation needed to be attentive to the words and not become distracted by the music.

Calvin believed in these musical prohibitions, however, only in the setting of public worship. Recognized as the most musical of all the reformers, John Calvin had a deep appreciation for music in its many forms and recognized its value on a personal level for releasing religious feelings and emotions. But above all, Calvin believed that the form of worship was not as important at that it be from the heart.⁴

The Genevan Psalter began as a series of versified Psalms. In the process of versification, the Psalm texts are set metrically, as in poetry. Because Calvin believed in upholding the integrity of Scripture, the alteration of the text was kept to a minimum.

Between 1538 and 1541, Calvin was staying in Strasbourg and while he was there, he acquired a set of twelve versified Psalms from Clément Marot, the servant and court poet of King Francis I of France.⁵ Calvin versified about eight more and in 1539 published Aulcuns pseaulmes et cantiques mys en chant, a small book of Psalms. This small publication was the beginning of the Genevan Psalter.

In 1541, Calvin found himself back in Geneva. Clément Marot spent a year there in 1542-1543 and completed versifying a total of 52 Psalms before his death in 1544.⁶ In 1548, Calvin met Theodorus Beza, a young poet. In this year, Beza came to Geneva and while there, Calvin paid him a visit. Unfortunately, he did not find Beza at home but did discover on his desk a versified version of Psalm 16. Beza, a recent convert to reformed Christianity had visited Calvin's church in Geneva and was so moved by the singing of the Psalms that he began to rhyme Psalms on his own. Beza was requested to complete the work of Marot and he did, versifying the rest of the Psalms.⁷

The music of the Psalter came from a variety of sources. It is uncertain from where some of the earliest of the Psalm melodies originated, but it is believed that the Geneva Council paid a series of chantres to compose melodies for the versified Psalms. In all, 125 different melodies are used for the 150 Psalms.⁸

Credit for the composition of several Psalm melodies is given to Matthias Greiter, a man with whom Calvin had association during his stay in Strasbourg. After Calvin returned to Geneva, the majority of the Psalm melodies were composed by Louis Bourgeois who came to Geneva in 1541 and served as the cantor at the Church of Saint Pierre in Geneva. He was requested by Calvin himself to work on the music for the Psalter and in his composition used the church modes as that basis for his melodies. By the time Bourgeois left Geneva in 1557, 81 Psalms had received melodies. The composer of the remaining melodies is known only as “Maître Pierre”. Very little is known about this cantor or his affiliation with Calvin. What is known, however, is that even with the 40 melodies delivered by Maître Pierre, each Psalm had not yet received its own melody. By this point, work on the project had spanned several decades and the pressure to complete it was intense. In order to hurry the project along, some melodies were reused in order to set each of the 150 Psalms to music. In 1561, the Psalter was complete.⁹

Upon completion of the Psalter, a huge coordinated publishing effort was undertaken in order to distribute the finished work to French congregations. With the goal of bringing 35,000 copies to the market in 2 years, German ministers licensed over twenty French publishers to print the Psalter in addition to the printers working in Geneva. The normal competition and privilege practices were set aside in order to coordinate such a large effort which was remarkable, especially when one considers that almost every copy of the Genevan Psalter was printed with full music notation.¹⁰

Once in circulation and widespread use, the Genevan Psalter had a profound effect upon the church. Calvinists used Psalm-singing to bridge the social gap between the literate elite and the masses.¹¹ During periods of time when Protestant worship was made illegal, worshipers would find comfort singing Psalms with one another. Religious refugees would even come to Geneva after hearing of the free Psalm-singing there.

The singing of Psalms became the defining characteristic of Calvinist evangelism and metric Psalm-singing became an effective way of spreading Calvinist culture.¹² During the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), Huguenot armies marched into battle singing Psalms. Calvinist martyrs burned at the stake died singing Psalms with their last breaths.¹³ But these effects were not limited to Calvinism. Other branches of the Christian church felt the influence of the Psalter as well.

In England, the reformation was heavily impacting the Church of England, blossoming into what we know of today as the Puritan movement. In 1562, one year after publication of the Genevan Psalter began, John Day printed the Book of Psalms, a volume containing Psalms in English. The music was derived from numerous sources including the Genevan Psalter and popular English ballads. This publication, which was in use for over 250 years and saw more than 600 edition, set the standard for English psalmody. According to musicologist Henry Wilder Foote, “next to the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer the metrical psalms were the most influential literary contribution made by the Reformation to the religious life of the English people.”¹⁴

Even the Catholic Church was feeling the effects of the thinking of Calvin and the beliefs that gave birth to the Psalter. During the Council of Trent (1545-1563), one of the more heated topics of discussion was the issue of church music. Echoes of Calvin's concern that music be easily understandable and not cater to the simple desires of men can be heard. Many Catholic figures believed that that basing of church music on secular cantus firmi and the irreverent attitudes and use of instruments were profaning the masses. In 1562, the Council issued an announcement that did not specifically ban polyphony or instruments from church music, but did prohibit anything that could be considered “lavish or impure.”¹⁵

The effects of Calvin and the Genevan Psalter extended even to the newly emerging colonies in America. With ties to the Reformation's effects in England, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony published the first American psalter, Bay Psalm Book, in 1640. Interestingly, this was the first book ever printed in English-speaking North America. The Bay Psalm Book saw many editions, but it is recognized that the music quality of these psalters had noticeably deteriorated from the standard set by the Genevan Psalter. This is due mainly to the use of a few uncomplicated musical forms, employed to make the learning of the melodies easier on the frontier where it was much more difficult to receive a musical training.¹⁶

While the church was responding to the Genevan Psalter, this was not the only arena in which an impact was made; the world of music was also affected. As is apt to occur, the popularity of the melodies of the Psalter spawned numerous “verse works”, or parodies. These verse works would set new, secular text to the familiar melodies. Most of these works served to ridicule the Catholic priesthood and political leadership as well as laud the victories of Protestant heroes.¹⁷ But mere satire was not the limit of the popularity of the Psalter's music. Because the melodies were comprised of only a single, unison line, the Psalter was a perfect source for melodies to harmonize.

The earliest harmonizations of the Genevan Psalter remained faithful to Calvin's ideal. They were primarily chordal, in keeping with the concern that intricate musical works would be distracting to the ear.¹⁸ Calude Goudimel harmonized the entire Psalter twice in this fashion between 1564 and 1568. He also composed several complicated polyphonic motets based on Psalm melodies.

Later harmonizations moved away from the simplicity of the so-called “Calvinist aesthetic”. They were concerned primarily with the creation of high quality musical works. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, a Calvinist organist used Psalm melodies as cantus firmi for numerous magnificent organ works. He also harmonized many Psalms for polyphonic voices. In 1584, Paschal de l-Estocart harmonized the entire Psalter for four to eight parts. Later, Claude Le Jeune did his own complete harmonizations, one in three parts and the other in four. These works were published posthumously in 1600. These many works are representative of a much larger interest in the music of the Genevan Psalter. Nearly all sixteenth-century musicians and composers tried their hand at harmonizing some portion of the Psalter.¹⁹

The Reformation was a time of radical change that affected the way people thought of God and the world around them. By challenging the church, men like John Calvin refined this great institution and brought it new life. In the same way, he refined the world of music by challenging it. By demanding of music a different and relatively new function, he created something that impacted nearly all music that came after it.

Bibliography

Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait, (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 225

Deddens, K. “The Origin of Our Psalm Melodies,” on Spindle Works, <http://www.spindleworks.com/library/deddens/psalmOrigins.htm>

Grout, Donald Jay and Claude Palisca, A History of Western Music, 6^th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 234

Leonard, Ricahrd. “Singing the Psalms: A Brief History of Psalmody,” <http://www.zionsong.com/art-leonard-singpsalms1.html>

Pettegree, Andrew. (ed.), The Reformation World, (London, New York: Routledge, 2000), 123, 125, 497-500

Schuler, Duck. “History of the Genevan Psalter-Pt. 1,” Credenda/Agenda, 13:1 (2001): 19

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