The music of Protestant denominations belonging to (or inspired by) the Reformed tradition inaugurated by Ulrich Zwingli and, particularly, Jean Calvin in Switzerland during the early decades of the 16th century. In almost all the Churches metrical-psalm singing has remained the distinguishing musical element of their worship.
ANDREAS MARTI (I), BERT POLMAN (II)
Reformed and Presbyterian church music
3. Polyphonic compositions on the Genevan psalm tunes.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I: Continental Europe
The Reformation ushered in by Ulrich Zwingli in Zürich in 1525 caused a break with traditional worship and its music. Unlike Luther, Zwingli did not preach within the framework of the Mass but in a special form of service based on the sermon. The liturgy employed for such a service, whose roots lay in late medieval practice, was entirely (or almost entirely) said rather than sung. At this early stage of the Reformation congregational singing within the liturgy was a rare occurrence, so that after the celebration of the Mass declined in Zürich and the preaching service became the central act of worship, liturgical music lost its foothold. That congregational singing was not introduced in Zürich in the years following the Reformation was probably connected with Zwingli’s death in 1531, after which his successors for a long time adhered strictly to the late Reformer’s decrees. In other Swiss and north-German cities, however, where Zwingli had been equally responsible for shaping the Reformation, congregational singing was introduced quite soon, at much the same time as in Lutheran areas. Scriptural authority was usually cited in justification of sacred song.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I: Continental Europe
The Reformation of 1536 in Geneva brought about a complete ban on music in the sermon-based church services; Geneva followed the example of Berne, its protecting power, where, in imitation of Zürich, music was also excluded from all services. Early in 1537 the pastors of Geneva petitioned the town council to introduce psalm singing; however, the expulsion of Jean Calvin in 1538 through disputes over church discipline obstructed this plan at first. Calvin went to Strasbourg and as pastor to the French refugee community in that city came into contact with the German psalm-singing tradition; in 1539 he compiled the first collection of metrical psalms, Aulcuns pseaumes et cantiques mys en chant, containing 13 psalms translated into rhyming verse by the poet and literary theorist Clément Marot (see Psalms, metrical, §II, 2(i)). It is not known how these texts reached Strasbourg and who composed the melodies. Calvin himself contributed six metrical psalms to this collection as well as verse translations of the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Nunc dimittis. Apart from the Nunc dimittis, Calvin’s texts were to be sung to German hymn tunes from Strasbourg.
Calvin was recalled to Geneva in 1541, and the first Genevan Psalter, La forme des prières et chantz ecclésiastiques, appeared the following year; it contains the order of service and prayers, together with the 13 psalms by Marot and five of the psalms, the Decalogue and Nunc dimittis by Calvin from the Strasbourg Psalter, as well as 17 new metrical psalm translations by Marot. The new melodies were most probably by Guillaume Franc, ‘chantre’ of the church and singing master in the school. The preface clearly expresses Calvin’s ideas of the purpose of music: ‘to move and inflame the hearts of men, so that they may call upon God and praise him more fervently’. However, he emphasized the special dignity of liturgical music as distinct from the kind of music ‘that is made to give people pleasure at table and in their houses’, by which he may also have meant sacred music. The second edition of the Genevan Psalter, Cinquante pseaumes, appeared in 1543 (the preface bears the date 10 June); all the texts are by Marot, who in 1542–3 was in Geneva taking refuge from persecution, and there is a separate melody for each text. The single extant copy of the Cinquante pseaumes of 1543 contains the texts alone, but the melodies, again all probably by Franc, may be inferred from the later 1548–9 edition.
Loys Bourgeois, who succeeded Franc in 1545, first of all wrote polyphonic versions of the existing melodies for domestic use; they were published in 1547 in Lyons because of the printing equipment available there. In 1548 Théodore de Bèze arrived in Geneva and continued the task of providing metrical versions of the psalms. An enlarged edition of the Psalter, Pseaumes octantetrois, with new melodies by Bourgeois, was published in 1551. The editions of 1554 and 1556 included six and seven additional psalm texts respectively, but without melodies of their own (possibly because Bourgeois was no longer in Geneva – a substantial cut in his salary had obliged him to leave in 1552). The complete Psalter was not published until 1562; all the new texts are by de Bèze, and ‘Maître Pierre le chantre’ (probably Pierre Davantès, although his exact identity has not been established) is named as composer of the melodies.
An important element in the background history of the melodies was the humanistic composition of odes: the setting of ancient texts to music in accordance with their metres, using only two different note values corresponding to the long and short syllables (‘mesuré à l’antique’). This interplay of long and short notes was also adopted for French metrical psalm melodies, but with little regard for the accentual and grammatical structure of the text. The correspondence between words and music is, therefore, less close than in, for example, Luther’s hymns, a factor of undoubted significance when Genevan melodies came to be adopted for metrical psalms in other languages.
Lines are clearly marked off from each other both by long initial and final notes and by pauses. There are no dotted or triple rhythms and few tied notes, so that the performance remains as closely related to speech as possible. The melodies often rise and fall quite steeply and display a wide range within relatively short phrase-units; their basic orientation is modal, although a tendency towards major and minor tonality is also evident in many cases. The various stages of development of the Genevan Psalter show that considerable effort was expended on composing the melodies, which by comparison with most German hymn tunes of the Reformation period have more in common with art music than with folksong. Although some melodies are based on Gregorian models and a few on German hymns and secular chansons, the psalm melodies as a whole display so many common features and such strongly characteristic formal principles that there could have been no routine dependence on models. Unlike Luther’s psalms, in which a degree of interpretation from a New Testament perspective is evident, the words of the Genevan psalms conform as closely as possible to the biblical texts. Consequently, when the process of rendering the texts into metre was completed in 1561, the University of Paris vouched for their fidelity to the ‘vérité hébraïque’; without such testimony a royal privilege to print them would not have been granted. In the Psalter there are 125 different melodies and almost as many different verse metres for the 150 psalms, the metrical Decalogue and the Nunc dimittis; despite its unity of structure, it has greater formal variety than any other repertory of sacred song.
In church services the psalms were not chosen for their subject matter but were sung in a set order so that the congregation could cover the whole psalter twice in one year. The singing was unaccompanied and in unison, partly to ensure the simplest and clearest manner of worship, but also because prevailing musical circumstances in Geneva made it impossible to call on any church choir to provide liturgical music.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I: Continental Europe
The many polyphonic works based on the psalms indicate that polyphony was not entirely rejected, although such compositions were performed in schools and in the home rather than in divine service. There were three types of setting: the large-scale, imitative, polyphonic motet, whose material was derived from one of the psalm melodies; the cantus firmus motet, in which the psalm melody was sung unchanged in one voice (usually the tenor or treble), the other voices singing in more or less close imitation; and the homophonic, syllabic setting, with the melody usually in the tenor voice.
The earliest psalm compositions were by Loys Bourgeois (1547, 1555, 1561), but the settings of Claude Goudimel proved particularly influential. Goudimel published separate collections in each of the three genres (the second and third styles used for complete editions of the psalms). The homophonic settings (Paris, 1564; Geneva, 1565) enjoyed extraordinarily wide distribution, particularly through Ambrosius Lobwasser’s use of them in his German version of the Genevan Psalter (Leipzig, 1573). Other complete psalters were composed by Philibert Jambe de Fer (Lyons, 1564), Paschal de l’Estocart (Geneva, 1583) and Claude Le Jeune. Le Jeune’s homophonic settings (Paris, 1601), issued a year after the composer’s death, were also widely distributed at certain periods but not to the same extent as Goudimel’s. His motets, for which he employed different types of setting and numbers of voices, include three books (1602, 1608 and 1610), each containing 50 three-part psalms. The elaborate psalm motets written at the beginning of the 17th century by the Dutch composer J.P. Sweelinck (1604, 1613, 1614 and 1621) are of great importance; their range of influence is attested by the singing of Rheto-Romanic versions of these compositions during church services in the Engadine area of Switzerland.
The existence of psalm settings for lute, or for lute and singing voice, is evidence of the place of the psalter in domestic music-making; some of the versions are intabulations of vocal settings, but others are genuine lute compositions. Complete psalters for lute survive by Adrian Le Roy (1547), Daniel Laelius (1617) and Nicolas Vallet (1620).
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I: Continental Europe
(iii) German-speaking Switzerland.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
In France itself the constant persecutions and restrictions meant that there were no distinct Reformed areas of any considerable size. Reformed church music, therefore, barely developed beyond the singing of psalms in divine service. However, a number of chansons with sacred texts were composed in the 16th century, and new sacred texts were set to the melodies of existing secular chansons. Among the composers of such works were Clément Janequin, Jacques Arcadelt, Pierre Certon, Eustorg de Beaulieu and, again, Goudimel. The metrical texts of the psalter were revised, and Valentin Conrart and Marc-Antoine Croziat wrote new versions in 1677–9. Further revisions and new editions appeared in the 20th century, most notably Le psautier français published in 1995 with texts by Roger Chapal.
In French-speaking Switzerland, a prominent role was played by the city of Lausanne, where a psalter was published in 1565 containing new melodies for almost all the psalms without their own tunes in the Geneva edition. The additional melodies were by Guillaume Franc, who had become ‘chantre’ in the city after leaving Geneva. Some of the melodies of the Genevan Psalter were revised or replaced.
Accompaniment of congregational psalm-singing began in the 17th century in western Switzerland: wind instruments were used at first in the Waadt region (governed by Berne), and groups of singers were employed elsewhere; the organ was introduced in the 18th century. At about the same time, newly composed cantiques spirituelles and hymns adapted from the German tradition were also sung. There were no notable compositions of sacred music in French-speaking Switzerland until the 20th century and the works of Frank Martin, who was descended from a Genevan pastor’s family.
The Waldensians may be counted as belonging to the French-speaking area in its wider sense. Originally from France, they settled in the mountain valleys of the Piedmont during the 13th century and adopted Genevan Calvinism after the Reformation. For divine service they generally used the French language and thus the Genevan Psalter in its original form. However, a partial edition in Italian, with Calvin’s preface of 1542–3, was published in Geneva in 1585. A particular Waldensian practice was the singing of complaintes, narrative songs in the style of traditional music and based on biblical themes or stories of Waldensian martyrs.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
The Reformed communities in the Netherlands led a clandestine existence during the mid-16th century. At the beginning they sang the Souterliedekens, a collection of metrical psalms to secular song tunes first published in 1540 and appearing in a further 33 editions by 1613, including a revision by Clemens non Papa in 1556–7 for three voices and one by Gherardus Mes in 1561 for four voices. However, with the strong influence of Calvinism, the souterliedekens were soon replaced by metrical psalms to the Genevan melodies. The first translation was by Jan Utenhove for the Dutch refugee community in London, although he indicated that a different tune was to be used in some cases. The translation by Petrus Dathenus then became the standard version. Introduced in 1568 by the synod of Wesel, it was confirmed as the official psalter by subsequent synodical decrees, despite some criticism of it and the existence of other metrical versions such as that by Philip Marnix van St Aldegonde (Antwerp, 1580). It was not until 1773 that Dathenus’s version was replaced by a new translation known as the Statenberijming.
Although use of the Dathenus Psalter was mandatory and exclusive, other sacred songs were sung in the Netherlands, most of them from the Lutheran areas of Germany. In 1574 De Psalmen Davids … ende ander Lofsangen appeared in Emden, with sacred songs forming the second part. Some centuries later, the repertory for divine worship was extended by the publication in 1938 of the Liedboek voor de kerken (revised in 1973), incorporating a substantial amount of material from other traditions as well as a number of new compositions (both texts and music). The Statenberijming psalms were replaced with new texts by Martinus Nijhoff, Jan Wit, Ad den Besten, Jan Willem, Schulte Nordholt, Willem Barnard, Muus Jacobse, Gerrit Kamphuis and Willem Johan van der Molen.
Following the Genevan example, Dutch congregations after the Reformation sang in unison and unaccompanied, led by a cantor; organ accompaniment was introduced in about 1630. (Polyphonic psalm settings were strictly non-liturgical.) As in Germany and Switzerland, the tempo of congregational singing became considerably slower during the course of the 17th century, making it impossible to keep to the original rhythms. A characteristic feature of Dutch practice was the improvised ornamentation of notes sung slowly and regularly. With the Statenberijming of 1773, the korte singtrant (‘short or quick manner of singing’) was introduced; only the first and last notes of each line were sung in the usual slow manner, the notes between them were sung at twice the speed. A return to original rhythms and appropriate tempos took place in the mid-20th century.
In contrast to Switzerland, organs remained in place in almost all Dutch churches after the Reformation, although at first they no longer fulfilled a liturgical function. Organists became civic employees, their task being to play before and after divine worship for the spiritual edification and pleasure of the faithful; they were also required to play at certain other times (e.g. after the bell for evening service had been rung) and on official occasions, which were often held in churches (being the largest public ‘rooms’ available). Reformed church music thus became one of the major sources of non-liturgical sacred music and led to the establishment of the church concert.
Except for the works of Sweelinck, very little organ music by early Dutch composers has come down to us, probably indicating that such music was largely improvised. Sweelinck combined the early English and Italian keyboard styles, and as the teacher of Heinrich Scheidemann and Samuel Scheidt, among others, he exercised a significant influence on the German organ repertory. Other works for organ include versions of psalm tunes by Henderik Speuy (tablature book of 1610), Anthoni van Noordt (Tabulatuur-boeck, Amsterdam, 1659) and Quirinius Gerbrandszoon van Blankenburg (Clavicimbel- en orgelboek der gereformeerde psalmen en kerkzangen, 1732).
Special mention should be made of the carillons in Dutch churches that regularly ‘broadcast’ psalm tunes to the outside world. This phenomenon, like the development of the church concert, is closely connected with the Calvinist belief that no special distinction is to be made between the sacred and the secular: the Church and the world are an indivisible and all-embracing whole, equally suited to the worship of God. Accordingly, organ music and polyphonic choral music, genres originally considered to be non-liturgical, were later adopted into the order of service.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
Although in 1525 Zwingli had instituted in Zürich a sermon-based service without singing (a tradition subsequently adopted by other towns, e.g. Berne in 1528), music was not entirely absent from church services during the Reformation century in Switzerland. In Basel congregational singing was introduced in 1526, at the start of the Reformation itself, and the Reformed community of St Gallen (1527) also sang from the first instance. In 1566 the Second Helvetic Confession expressed itself in neutral terms on music in worship, but the general trend was positive. After the middle of the century singing was introduced into the order of service in Schaffhausen (c1555), Berne (1573–4, after preliminary stages in 1538 and 1558) and Zürich (1598). The sung repertory was essentially based on that of Konstanz and Strasbourg. The first edition of the Konstanz Gesangbuch was printed in Zürich in about 1533–4 and subsequent editions were also printed there; it would appear, therefore, that singing had not been completely rejected in the city or the authorities would hardly have granted the work a printing licence.
From about the end of the 17th century until well into the 19th, the Genevan Psalter was dominant. The Zürich Gesangbuch of 1598 contained all 150 psalms in Lobwasser’s translation; the Berne Gesangbuch of 1606 consisted of a mixture of Strasbourg and Genevan psalms, as did the St Gallen Gesangbuch of 1606, which also included settings by Goudimel. As the 17th century proceeded, Lobwasser’s version of the psalms was largely established as standard; four-part settings were the general rule, although Goudimel’s music was usually revised and simplified, most notably in the Transponiertes Psalmenbuch (1675) of J.U. Sultzberger, music director of Berne. Besides the Lobwasser psalms, these books usually contained a small number of ‘festive hymns’ (i.e. for the church year, for baptisms, the Communion service and weddings) and ‘old psalms’ (i.e. psalms from the 16th-century Strasbourg and Konstanz repertories).
Congregational singing was led by a Kantor, usually with the support of a choir consisting of schoolchildren and a few adults. In the 17th century it was often led by a wind ensemble; the organ was reintroduced in the canton of Berne in the 18th century and in the Zürich canton in the 19th. Basle, where the organ came back into use as early as the 16th century, occupies a special position; it was here that Samuel Mareschall published several settings of psalm tunes with the melody in the treble (1606). The Basle books also contained a larger repertory of hymns that were not part of the Lobwasser Psalter.
In the 18th century Lobwasser’s texts were replaced by various new metrical versions, such as those of Johann Jakob Spreng (Basle, 1743) and Johannes Stapfer (Berne, 1775), but the new metrical version by Johann Rudolf Ziegler (Zürich, 1763) did not become popular. In the 19th century the Genevan psalms disappeared either wholly or partly from Gesangbücher, making way for German hymns, both older and more recent; those to texts by C.F. Gellert were especially prominent. The first Gesangbuch for the whole of German-speaking Switzerland appeared in 1952; it begins with a short section devoted to metrical psalms, following to some extent the tradition of the old psalters.
Early Gesangbücher provide only limited indications of singing practice. From contemporary accounts, it seems that in the first instance the congregation hardly joined in at all, leaving the singing to the Kantor or choir. Only gradually during the course of the 17th and 18th centuries did genuinely congregational singing become the norm. For long periods, too, polyphony must have been a very imperfectly realized ideal. It is noteworthy that church authorities, pastors and schoolmasters made constant efforts to teach singing. Until the 19th century the Berne Gesangbuch included in its appendix an elementary theory of music to enable members of the congregation to learn to sing from musical notation. The psalms were sung at a very slow tempo, and, in accordance with the clear instructions given in the Berne book, no difference between long and short notes was to be observed in the psalm melodies.
Singing gained a new impetus with the introduction of the organ. In Lutheran areas the organ was at first more commonly associated with choral music or with the solo performance of preludes and voluntaries; only later did it assume the role of accompanist to congregational singing. In Reformed Switzerland, on the other hand, when the organ was introduced in the 18th and 19th centuries, its primary function was to accompany the singing. In view of this limited scope, instruments were usually quite modest. In many places organists compiled manuscript books containing the psalm tunes, with Goudimel’s basses and additional figured continuo, and often the patterns for interludes to be played between the lines of the psalms. Except for the larger cities, organ music of a more artistically demanding nature was not commonly heard in Calvinist churches until after church music reforms in the 20th century.
During the early days of Calvinist music as well as later, singing in schools and at home took its place beside singing in the church. In towns and larger villages, the musical ensembles founded to promote congregational singing were the very foundations upon which the musical life of the middle classes was gradually built. An 18th-century movement initiated by J.C. Bachofen and Johannes Schmidlin to encourage singing in the Zürich Oberland focussed, in line with the spirit of the times, on sacred songs of an edifying and sentimental nature written in the style of the late-Baroque continuo song. Settings for two sopranos and bass are typical of Bachofen; and Niklaus Käsermann, Kantor of Berne Minster, contributed a number of settings for similar forces of sacred songs by Gellert (1804). Käsermann also wrote a version of each song for voice and simple piano accompaniment; aesthetically, these may be regarded as a form of ‘naive art’. The ventures of Bachofen and Schmidlin were continued through the Volkschor movement of the singing teacher H.G. Nägeli (1773–1836), a significant figure in the history of the choral society. During the 19th century and the early 20th, church choirs were founded in many places as independent choral societies; they combined in 1897 to form the Schweizerische Kirchengesangsbund.
During the 20th century, church music in the German-speaking Reformed areas of Switzerland largely followed German church music reform, but it retained its own identity through the use of the Genevan psalms and the Reformed order of service centred on the sermon. The works of Willy Burkhard and Adolf Brunner, among others, are of particular note. In the second half of the century, large-scale, usually non-liturgical works with their roots in the Reformed Church were written by composers such as Daniel Glaus and Ulrich Gasser.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
Lobwasser’s German translation of the Genevan psalms appeared in Leipzig in 1573. With four-part homophonic settings by Goudimel, this metrical psalter soon formed the basis of liturgical music in Reformed areas of Germany, although psalms and hymns of the Lutheran and other German traditions were usually sung too. In 1607 Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, wrote melodies for those psalms in the Genevan Psalter without tunes of their own, and in 1612 he set the entire psalter for four voices. Later in the 17th century Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, who belonged to the Reformed Church, commissioned the Berlin Kantor Johannes Crüger to prepare a new, polyphonic version of the Lobwasser Psalter; the settings (Psalmodia sacra, 1657–8) are in continuo style with additional instrumental parts. For his own melodies (e.g. to the texts of Paul Gerhardt), Crüger often took the structural principles of the Genevan melodies as a basis, using similar rhythmic patterns or quoting melodic elements. Lobwasser’s psalm texts were replaced in 1798 by the translation of Matthias Jorissen; some of his versions are still sung.
In Lower Germany the Reformation led to the Pietist movement, which produced two major German hymnodists, Joachim Neander and Gerhard Tersteegen. While the latter is significant only as a writer of texts, Neander also composed several melodies, some of which have continued in use.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
During the Reformation period in Hungary Lutherans and members of the Reformed Church remained relatively close to each other. The Calvinists neither rejected congregational singing nor confined it to the psalms alone. The introduction of the Genevan Psalter at the beginning of the 17th century evidently resulted from an increased demarcation between the two confessions; translated into Hungarian by Albert Szenci Mólnar, this psalter was first published in 1606–07, has since appeared in more than 100 editions and is still in use. In 1743 György Maróthi produced a version containing Goudimel’s four-part settings. Contemporary hymns displaced the psalms in the 19th century, but in 1948 the entire psalter was restored to the Hungarian hymnbook. Polyphonic compositions on the psalm tunes have been written in modern times by Zoltán Kodály and other composers.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
The Czech translation of the Genevan psalms by Jiří Strejc appeared in 1587 and by 1602 had gone through 16 editions. The prohibition of all non-Catholic denominations in 1627 prevented further development. After the 1781 Edict of Tolerance, Bohemia and Moravia were subject to Reformed influence from Hungary. The first part of the 1978 kancionál of the Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brethren contains all 150 psalms with the Genevan melodies.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §I, 4: Continental Europe
The Reformation in Poland was strongly influenced by Calvinism, but in contrast to Geneva a separate Reformed repertory of sacred song developed. Polyphonic versions of some of its compositions were created for court music ensembles and domestic use. Metrical psalms with texts by Jan Kochanowski were set to music by Mikołaj Gomółka in 1580. The translation of the Genevan Psalter by Maciej Rybiński appeared in about 1600 (the 1605 edition survives). Polish Reformed books of the 17th century contain the Psalter and other sacred songs.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §II: Great Britain and North America
British Presbyterianism was ‘as by law established’ in England between 1647 and 1652. The earliest Presbyterians were psalm singers who were influenced by the Genevan Psalter (1562), the Sternhold and Hopkins Old Version (1562) and various editions of Francis Rous’s The Psalms of David (1641–6); most influential, however, was the Scottish Psalms of David in Meeter (1650). Although an occasional hymn might be included in worship, these Presbyterians took seriously Calvin’s command to ‘sing only psalms’. (For a full discussion of early Protestant worship, metrical psalmody and performing practice in Great Britain see Psalms, metrical, §§III–IV, esp. §III, 1.)
Calvin himself as well as his immediate successors used a number of other biblical texts, such as the Lukan canticles, in addition to their staple diet of psalmody. Numerous attempts during the 16th and 17th centuries to paraphrase such non-psalmic texts of scripture were renewed in Scotland in 1742, eventually leading to the Translations and Paraphrases in Verse (1781), which contained 67 songs based on texts from both the Old and the New Testaments. The use of these paraphrases led to a growing popularity of ‘hymns of human composure’, although psalmody was still the only repertory to be officially sanctioned. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that the ‘established’ Church of Scotland issued hymnals: Hymns for Public Worship (1861) and the important Scottish Hymnal (1870; enlarged edition, 1884, containing 442 hymns). The Free Church of Scotland, formed in 1843, authorized Psalm-Versions, Paraphrases and Hymns (1873) and the Free Church Hymnbook (1882). The best-known hymn writer of the Free Church was Horatius Bonar (1807–89). The 1852 Hymnbook of the United Presbyterian Church contained almost 500 songs and was extensively revised by Henry Smart in 1877.
The development of Presbyterianism in England embraced elements of strict Calvinism, Congregationalism and even Unitarianism. After a reorganization in 1836, Presbyterians in England also grew to accept hymns in addition to the traditional repertory of psalms. Their Paraphrases & Hymns (1857) was followed by Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship (1867), which included 521 psalms, biblical paraphrases and hymns. Following the 1876 union of English Presbyterians and English congregations of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the new Presbyterian Church of England issued Church Praise (1882, 2/1908), which provided some 550 psalms, hymns and doxologies.
The Church Hymnary of 1898 was authorized for use in the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; the music edition was prepared by John Stainer and shows something of an English bias in its 625 selections. Its successor, the Revised Church Hymnary (1927) edited by the Welsh musician David Evans, was a much loved hymnal, containing 707 hymns and offering various psalter supplements to suit the needs of Presbyterians in England, Scotland and Ireland. The Church Hymnary, Third Edition (1973) reveals a renaissance of Scottish music in its choice of hymn tunes.
The 1972 union of English Congregationalists and English and Welsh Presbyterians to become the United Reformed Church led to the publication of New Church Praise (1975) as a supplement to Congregational Praise (1951) and the Church Hymnary, Third Edition. The United Reformed Church’s hymnal, Rejoice and Sing (1991), is a fine anthology of hymns drawn from the various Christian traditions of song and its contemporary manifestations in Great Britain and North America of the last quarter of the 20th century (what the hymnologist Erik Routley called the ‘hymn explosion’).
The organ was introduced into Presbyterian churches during the late 18th century in England, and later still in Scotland and Wales; nevertheless some Scottish Presbyterian congregations continue to sing their psalms, paraphrases and hymns without any instrumental accompaniment. Choirs were similarly slow in coming to Presbyterian and Reformed churches in the British Isles, but to the extent that such ensembles are evident, they draw on a wide range of anthems and liturgical music to supplement the normal congregational singing.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §II: Great Britain and North America
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §II, 2: North America
The earliest congregations of Presbyterians in the American colonies were established in the 17th century by New England Puritans. Their church repertory consisted of metrical psalms, for which they used most commonly the Scottish Psalms of David in Meeter (1650); some also used the Bay Psalm Book (1640). In accord with their British heritage, the psalms were ‘lined out’ and sung unaccompanied in unison. (For further discussion of metrical psalm singing in North America see Psalms, metrical, §V.)
The scarcity of psalters and a decline in musical literacy among these American pioneers led to the retention of only about a dozen psalm tunes, which were sung with melodic and rhythmic ‘liberties’ and at extremely slow tempos. The establishment of singing schools in the American colonies after 1720 by leaders such as John Tufts contributed notably to the improvement of psalm singing. Presbyterians came to enjoy ‘regular singing’, that is, by note and according to musical rules. Consequently the first American Presbyterian General Assembly recommended in 1788 that the custom of lining out be set aside, and by the turn of the century, many Presbyterians had accepted organs to accompany congregational singing. Another important result of the singing school movement was the introduction of church choirs into Presbyterian worship.
In 1741, on the introduction of new psalmody, Presbyterian congregations split into the ‘Old Side’ and the ‘New Side’. The Old Side fought fiercely to retain their familiar Scottish Psalter of 1650, whereas the New Side favoured the New Version Psalter of Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady (1696) and the Psalms of David Imitated by Isaac Watts (1719). This ‘Psalm Controversy’ continued in some Presbyterian churches for almost another century, while in many others it was soon eclipsed by an even more vehement battle, the ‘Great Hymn Controversy’. Watts had recast the psalms but also wrote a number of hymns ‘of human composure’, and his verses became widely known to Presbyterian congregations during the Great Awakening of the mid-18th century. Urania, or a Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems, and Hymns, published by the Presbyterian James Lyon (1761), psalm and hymn tune books such as The New England Psalm Singer by William Billings (1770), and the evangelical hymns of Charles Wesley were gaining popularity in the American colonies. Soon a large group of Presbyterians began a shift from exclusive psalmody to an ever-increasing repertory of hymns. By 1788 the General Assembly could declare that the public praise of God was fulfilled ‘by singing psalms or hymns’. In 1802 a revision of Watts’s Psalms with a collection of hymns was compiled by the Presbyterian president of Yale College, Timothy Dwight. In 1831 the Presbyterian Assembly authorized its first hymnal, a volume combining the two streams of congregational song – psalms and hymns – suitably entitled Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, which included items not only by Watts but also by 70 other authors; it was revised and its hymnic content expanded in 1843.
The Civil War led to the division of American Presbyterians into southern and northern denominations; each branch issued its own authorized hymnals. The significant hymnals of the (northern) Presbyterian Church–USA were The Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church (1866); The Presbyterian Hymnal (1874), which was influenced by the British Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861); The Hymnal (1895), edited by the distinguished hymnologist Louis F. Benson; and The Hymnal (1933), edited by Clarence Dickinson, the contents of which were noticeably influenced by the British Revised Church Hymnary (1927). The (southern) Presbyterian Church in the USA published The New Psalms and Hymns (1901) and The Presbyterian Hymnal (1927), both of which exhibited a conservative approach with their retention of older hymns and psalm versifications. In the latter half of the 19th century, a Presbyterian minister, Charles S. Robinson, produced some 15 hymnals, many with the assistance of Joseph P. Holbrook. Though never officially adopted, Robinson’s hymnals such as Laudes Domini (1884) and In excelsis (1897) were widely used in northern Presbyterian congregations and to some extent in the south.
In 1955 the two main Presbyterian branches joined three other Presbyterian and Reformed denominations in publishing The Hymnbook; edited by David Hugh Jones, its 600 selections included more New England content and some gospel hymns. Before the reunion of the southern and northern branches in 1983, both bodies had also co-published The Worshipbook (1972), which included liturgical material and a collection of 373 hymns (in alphabetical order of first lines). The hymnal of the reunited Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (1990) edited by LindaJo McKim, contains 605 hymns in a range of musical styles, employs ‘inclusive’ language and incorporates some black American, Hispanic and Asian hymns. A separate Psalter (1993) is available for both speaking and singing the psalms.
Some Presbyterians have continued the tradition of singing only metrical psalms. The United Presbyterian psalters of 1881 (music edition, 1887) and 1912 (prepared with assistance from eight other Presbyterian and Reformed denominations) and The Book of Psalms for Singing (1973) of the Reformed Presbyterian Church reflect this tendency. Some smaller Presbyterian bodies have issued their own hymnals, for example, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s Trinity Hymnal (editions of 1961 and 1990).
Presbyterianism in Canada developed initially in Nova Scotia in the mid-18th century and gained momentum through continuing immigration from the British Isles (especially by members of the Church of Scotland) and the USA. A formal union of various Presbyterian congregations in 1875 led to the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Their traditional use of the Scottish Psalms of David in Meeter (1650) and the Scottish Paraphrases (1781) had already been complemented in the earlier 19th century by psalms and hymns of Isaac Watts and later 18th century British hymnody. The Presbyterian Book of Praise (1897) was their first significant hymnal. Edited by Alexander MacMillan, its 621 selections included both metrical psalmody and a strongly British-orientated group of hymns; it was revised in 1918 to include more hymns from the USA.
Two-thirds of Canadian Presbyterians joined with Methodists and Congregationalists to form the United Church of Canada in 1925. The first hymnal of that new denomination, The Hymnary (1930), still reveals the Scottish Presbyterian influence of the British Revised Hymnary (1927). The ‘continuing’ Presbyterians retained their name as the Presbyterian Church in Canada and revised their Book of Praise again in 1972 to include a larger variety of hymns from the USA in addition to the classic British material. Their Book of Psalms (1995) includes prose psalms which can be spoken, or sung with psalm refrains or psalm tones. The Book of Praise (1997 edition) consists of some 500 hymns (including modern hymns, scripture choruses, third-world hymns and greater Canadian content) and 100 metrical psalms.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music, §II, 2: North America
The Dutch merchants who landed in what is now New York in 1613 and set up the Reformed Church in America brought with them Peter Dathenus’s Dutch translation (1566) of Calvin’s Genevan Psalter (1562). For more than 100 years these Dutch settlers sang their psalms in unison, a cappella, in slow tempo, and usually under the leadership of a voorzanger (cantor) until organs were introduced late in the 17th century. Their first English psalter was The Psalms of David (1767), for which Francis Hopkinson adapted the psalm paraphrases of Tate and Brady’s ‘New Version’ (1696) to be sung to altered versions of the Genevan tunes (see Psalms, metrical, §V, 1).
After the American War of Independence, the Reformed Church in America (RCA) gained its independence from the Dutch Church, and a new psalter was authorized with a supplement of ‘some well-composed spiritual hymns’. The resulting volume, The Psalms of David with Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1789), featured the psalms in short, common and long metres, with many texts from Isaac Watts and the ‘New Version’. Most of its 133 hymns were designated for use with preaching based on the Heidelberg Catechism and with the administration of the sacraments. This change from Dutch to English, the adoption of Watts’s texts and of hymnody, and the loss of virtually all Genevan tunes marked a clear break with the Dutch Reformed tradition. In each later edition of the book (1814, 1831, 1869) the number of hymns was increased. A Sabbath School and Social Hymn Book (1843) and Hymns of Prayer and Praise (1871) were published for use in the RCA’s Sunday schools and informal services of worship. By 1890 the Church had approved an altered version of Edwin Bedell’s hymnal; it appeared as The Church Hymnary (1891), with almost 1000 hymns and a few metrical psalms. By this time, choirs who sang primarily anthems were customary in RCA worship.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Church participated in the preparation of two ecumenical hymnals. The Hymnal of the Reformed Church (1920) was prepared jointly by the RCA and the (German) Reformed Church in the USA; it contained a few psalm paraphrases interspersed with the hymns, an arrangement that contributed to the further decline of psalm singing in this Church. The Hymnbook (1955), containing almost 600 hymns and edited by David Hugh Jones, resulted from the cooperation of several Presbyterian denominations and the RCA. Rejoice in the Lord (1985), edited by Erik Routley, contains significant hymn texts and tunes from the medieval period to the present day and more than 60 psalm paraphrases, but no American gospel hymns.
The Hymnbook (1955), Rejoice in the Lord (1985), Hope Publishing Company’s The Worshiping Church (1990) and numerous other hymnals are now in use by RCA congregations in the USA and Canada. A joint project with the Christian Reformed Church was begun in 1997 to produce a hymnal supplement that would include new psalmody, new hymnody from the later 20th century ‘hymn explosion’ and the Third World, and scripture and praise choruses.
As a result of a secession in the Reformed Church of the Netherlands (1834), Dutch immigrants moved to Michigan and Iowa, and, after briefly uniting with the RCA, formed the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in 1857. Initially isolating themselves from American culture, these settlers sang exclusively Dutch psalms, using an edition of 1773 that featured tonal, isorhythmic versions of the Genevan tunes. Later in the 19th century, unions with some German-speaking Reformed congregations in Iowa and Illinois and English-speaking Reformed congregations in New Jersey brought some marginal use of hymns into the denomination, although the CRC remained largely committed to Dutch metrical psalmody until just before World War I. In 1914 it adopted the United Presbyterian Psalter (1912) as its first English-language songbook; this had 413 settings of British and American psalm and hymn tunes for the 150 psalms. The texts of the RCA catechism hymns were appended, but these could be sung only by the English-speaking CRC congregations in New Jersey. Only four (corrupt) Genevan tunes appear in this book. This psalter, similar to the RCA’s book of 1789, thus signalled for the CRC a significant break with its Dutch roots.
The inclusion of hymn tunes and hymn texts in the 1914 psalter, the popularity of hymn singing in singing-schools associated with the CRC and in church choirs, and the commercial promotion of American Sunday school and gospel hymnody led to the ‘hymn question’ in the Christian Reformed Church. After much debate, the battle was settled in favour of hymns, and the ‘red’ Psalter Hymnal was published in 1934. This contained 327 psalm settings and 141 hymns, including 39 Genevan tunes with new English paraphrases by Dewey Westra and some CRC clergy. Although metrical psalmody was to be maintained, members of the Church could now sing a variety of English translations of Latin, Greek and German hymns, and many 18th- and 19th-century hymns. Thus the Psalter Hymnal indicated a growing ecumenical awareness within the CRC, and in its eclectic selection of psalms and hymns revealed the Americanization that had broken the earlier isolation. Although the Genevan tunes were presented in rhythmic versions in the 1934 edition, later printings (1939, 1948) saw changes in their harmonizations and reversions to isorhythm. After World War II, new Dutch immigrants to Canada led to the CRC’s growth in that country and brought a renewed interest in psalmody to the denomination.
To mark the denomination’s centennial in 1957, a ‘blue’ edition of the Psalter Hymnal was published (1959), containing 310 settings for the 150 psalms and 183 hymns from a larger group of sources than in the 1934 edition. A number of the 37 Genevan tunes in the ‘blue’ book appeared again in rhythmic settings. The ‘hymn explosion’ of the second half of the 20th century, the greater ethnic diversity within the CRC, and the influence of scripture singing and ‘praise and worship’ choruses led to another edition of the Psalter Hymnal in 1988. This ‘grey’ book, edited by Emily Brink, contains 150 psalm settings (one complete versification and one tune per psalm), 86 Bible songs and 405 hymns. Its texts and tunes are drawn from the rich, ecumenical heritage of Christian psalmody and hymnody, including material from black American, Hispanic and Asian cultures. Many of its psalm versifications are new, and inclusive language is used throughout the book.
Christian Reformed worship often involves choirs in the American part of the denomination and more psalmody in its Canadian churches, but strong congregational singing, supported by competent organists, is still the most notable feature of the Church’s Sunday services.
German Reformed pioneers initially came to the USA in the 1700s and were strengthened by new waves of immigrants in the 1800s. These settlers shared with their Dutch contemporaries a similar heritage of Genevan psalmody from the Calvinist Reformation of the 16th century. First associated with the Reformed Church in America, these German-speaking Reformed pioneers formed the General Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States in 1863. Their native psalter, Neue Bereimung der Psalmen (1798), had been prepared by Matthias Jorissen to improve upon the older German translation of the Genevan Psalter by Ambrosius Lobwasser (1573). But their edition of Jorissen also included 355 hymns and chorales in a section called ‘Einige Gesängen’. As the German language was exchanged for English by these immigrants, English hymnody became their staple repertory. Thus The Hymnal of the Reformed Church in the United States (1890) included 795 hymns mostly from British and American sources but displayed little trace of the denomination’s original German roots.
After a merger with the Evangelical Synod of North America (another body of German-speaking immigrants), the new denomination took the name Evangelical and Reformed Church, and published a new Hymnal (1940) which drew on a wider group of sources. A merger in 1957 with Congregational Christian Churches (who were almost ready to begin using their 1958 Pilgrim Hymnal) resulted in the United Church of Christ and led to The Hymnal of the United Church of Christ (1974), edited by John Ferguson and William Nelson. This volume and its successor, New Century Hymnal (1995), include among their ecumenical contents a few Genevan tunes and a larger group of German chorales. The latter book contains some 600 hymns (many of whose texts incorporate alterations in language for God and for humans) and a psalter that uses both sung responses and pointing with 12 psalm tones. The denomination’s connection to a German Reformed heritage is evident in its new translations of some classic pietist hymns.
The same wave of Dutch immigration to Canada that produced the Canadian segment of the Christian Reformed Church after World War II also led to a smaller denomination called the Canadian Reformed Church. It is still largely a psalm-singing body: their Book of Praise (1972, 2/1984) includes English versifications of the 150 psalms that fit all the traditional Genevan psalm tunes (it is thus sub-titled ‘Anglo-Genevan Psalter’) and only 65 hymns.
Reformed and Presbyterian church music
J. Calvin: La forme des prières et chantz ecclésiastiques (Geneva, 1542); ed. E. Busch, with introduction and Ger. trans. by A. Marti, Calvin-Studienausgabe, ii: Gestalt und Ordnung der Kirche (Neukirchen, 1997)
C. Marot and T. de Bèze: Les pseaumes en vers français avec leurs mélodies (Geneva, 1562/R1986 with introduction by P. Pidoux) [facs.]
P. Pidoux, ed.: Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle (Basle, 1962–9)
Le psautier français: les 150 psaumes versifiés en français contemporain: mélodies originales du XVIe siècle harmonisées à quatre voix (Lyons, 1995)
MGG2 (‘Calvinistische Musik’; A. Marti, J.R. Luth)
C.J. Riggenbach: Der Kirchengesang in Basel seit der Reformation (Basle, 1870)
H. Weber: Geschichte des Kirchengesanges in der deutschen reformirten Schweiz seit der Reformation (Zürich, 1876)
E. Nievergelt: Die Tonsätze der deutschschweizerischen reformierten Kirchengesangbücher im XVII. Jahrhundert (Zürich, 1944)
P. Pidoux: ‘Über die Herkunft der Melodien des Genfer Psalters’, JbLH, i (1955), 113–14
P. Pidoux and M. Jenny: ‘Untersuchungen zu den Aulcuns pseaumes et cantiques mys en chant à Strasbourg 1539’, JbLH, ii (1957), 107–11
H. Reimann: Die Einführung des Kirchengesangs in der Zürcher Kirche nach der Reformation (Zürich, 1957)
P. Pidoux: ‘Die Autoren der Genfer Melodien’, JbLH, v (1960), 143–6
M. Jenny: Geschichte des deutsch-schweizerischen evangelischen Gesangbuches im 16. Jahrhundert (Basle, 1962)
W. Blankenburg: ‘Zur Verbreitung des Genfer Liedpsalters in Mitteleuropa in den ersten Jahrzehnten nach seiner Fertigstellung’, JbLH, ix (1964), 159–62
W. Blankenburg: ‘Die Kirchenmusik in den reformierten Gebieten’, Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenmusik, ed. F. Blume (Kassel, 2/1965; Eng. trans., 1974), 343–400
M. Jenny: Zwinglis Stellung zur Musik im Gottesdienst (Zürich, 1966)
T. Schulek: ‘Kurzer Abriss der Geschichte des ungarischen Kirchengesangbuches und des Standes hymnologischer Forschung in Ungarn’, JbLH, xiii (1968), 130–40
K. Hławiczka: ‘Zur Geschichte der polnischen evangelischen Gesangbücher des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’, JbLH, xv (1970), 169–91
P. Pidoux: ‘Loys Bourgeois’ Anteil am Hugenotten-Psalter’, JbLH, xv (1970), 123–32
D. Gutknecht: Untersuchungen zur Melodik des Hugenottenpsalters (Regensburg, 1972)
G. Aeschbacher: ‘Die Reformation und das kirchenmusikalische Leben im alten Bern’, 450 Jahre Berner Reformation: historischer Verein des Kantons Bern (Berne, 1980), 225–47
P. Pidoux: ‘Vom Ursprung der Genfer Psalmweisen’, Musik und Gottesdienst, xxxviii (1984), 45–63
G. Aeschbacher: ‘Zur Frage der Zeilendpausen im Genfer Psalter’, JbLH, xxix (1985), 145–51
J.R. Luth: ‘Daer wert om’t seerste uytgekreten …’: bijdragen tot een geschiednis van de gemeentezang in het Nederlandse gereformeerde protestantisme ca. 1550 – ca. 1852 (Kampen, 2/1986)
G. Aeschbacher: ‘Über den Zusammenhang von Versstruktur, Strophenform und rhythmischer Gestalt der Genfer Psalmlieder’, JbLH, xxxi (1987–8), 53–71
D. Ciesch: ‘Kirchenlied und Kirchenmusik in der Waldenserkirche’, JbLH, xxxi (1987–8), 102–07
L. Guillo: ‘Quarante-six psautiers antérieurs à 1562’, Psaume: bulletin de la recherche sur le psautier huguenot, ii (1988), 27–34
J.-M. Noailly: Claude Goudimel, Adrian Le Roy et les 150 psaumes, Paris, 1562–1567 (diss., U. of St Etienne, 1988)
G. Aeschbacher: ‘Niklaus Käsermann: Geistliche Oden und Lieder von C.F. Gellert: ein typisch bernisch-reformierter Beitrag zur Pflege des Gellert-Liedes’, Musik und Gottesdienst, xliii (1989), 174–84
J. Kouba: ‘Kirchengesang in der tschechoslowakischen Geschichte bis 1800’, IAH-Bulletin, xvii (1989), 43–52
E. Weber: ‘Le style “nota contra notam” et ses incidences sur le choral luthérien et sur le psautier huguenot’, JbLH, xxxii (1989), 73–93
J.-D. Candaux: ‘Le psautier des églises réformées: problématique actuelle et perspectives de recherche’, Psaume: bulletin de la recherche sur le psautier huguenot, vii (1992), 159–64
J. Love: Scottish Church Music: its Composers and Sources (Edinburgh and London, 1891)
J. Brownlie: The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church Hymnary (Edinburgh, 1899, 2/1911) [1898 edn]
W. Cowan and J. Love: The Music of the Church Hymnary and the Psalter in Metre: its Sources and Composers (Edinburgh, 1901) [1898 edn]
J. Julian: A Dictionary of Hymnology (London, 2/1907/R)
L.F. Benson: The English Hymn (New York, 1915/R)
J. Moffatt: Handbook to the Church Hymnary (London, 1927/R with suppl. by M. Patrick) [1927 edn]
M. Patrick: The Story of the Church’s Song (Edinburgh, 1927/R)
M. Patrick: Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody (London, 1949)
M. Frost: English and Scottish Psalm and Hymn Tunes, c. 1543–1677 (London, 1953)
K.L. Parry and E. Routley: Companion to Congregational Praise (London, 1953) [1951 edn]
W. Shaw: ‘Church Music in England from the Reformation to the Present Day’, Protestant Church Music: a History, ed. F. Blume and others (New York, 1974), 691–732
J.M. Barkley: Handbook to the Church Hymnary, Third Edition (London, 1979)
N. Temperley: ‘The Old Way of Singing: its Origins and Development’, JAMS, xxxiv (1981), 511–44
H.W. Foote: Three Centuries of American Hymnody (Cambridge, MA, 1940/R1968 with new appx)
L. Ellinwood: The History of American Church Music (New York, 1953/R)
W.J. Reynolds: A Joyful Sound: Christian Hymnody (New York, 2/1978, rev. 3/1987 with M. Price as A Survey of Christian Hymnody)
E. Routley: A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (Collegeville, MN, 1979)
A. Christ-Janer, C.W. Hughes and C.S. Smith: American Hymns Old and New (New York, 1980) [vol.ii incl. notes by C.W. Hughes on the hymns, and biographies of the authors and composers]
H. Eskew and H. McElrath: Sing with Understanding: an Introduction to Christian Hymnology (Nashville, TN, 1980, enlarged 2/1995)
E. Routley: The Music of Christian Hymns (Chicago, 1981)
W.C. Covert and C.W. Laufer: Handbook to the Hymnal (Philadelphia, 1935) [1933 edn]
R. Martin: The Transition from Psalmody to Hymnody in Southern Presbyterianism, 1753–1901 (diss., Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1963)
G.L. Doughty: The History and Development of Music in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (diss., U. of Iowa, 1966)
R. Stevenson: Protestant Church Music in America (New York, 1966)
J. Melton: Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns since 1787 (Richmond, VA, 1967)
T. Yount: ‘Orthodox Presbyterian Hymnody’, American Organist, xv/5 (1981), 29 only
M.F. Simmons: ‘Hymnody: its Place in Twentieth Century Presbyterianism’, The Confessional Mosaic: Presbyterianism and Twentieth-Century Theology, ed. M.J. Coalter, J.M. Mulder and L.B. Weeks (Louisville, KY, 1990), 162–86
L.K. McKim: The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion (Louisville, KY, 1993)
D.D. Demarest: History and Characteristics of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church (New York, 1856, enlarged 4/1889 as The Reformed Church in America)
V.L. Redway: ‘James Parker and the “Dutch Church”’, MQ, xxiv (1938), 481–500
C.S. Smith: ‘The 1774 Psalm Book of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in New York’, MQ, xxxiv (1948), 84–96
J.H. Kromminga: The Christian Reformed Church: a Study in Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids, MI, 1949)
J. Oranje: Calvinism and Music: Retrospect and Prospect (thesis, Northwestern U., 1951)
A. Haeussler: The Story of Our Hymns: the Handbook to The Hymnal of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (St Louis, MO, 3/1952) [1941 edn]
H.A. Bruinsma: Accompanists of the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI, 1954) [CRC]
J.P. Luidens: The Americanization of the Dutch Reformed Church (diss., U. of Oklahoma, 1969)
W.A. Weber: ‘The Hymnody of the Dutch Reformed Church in America, 1628-1953’, The Hymn, xxvi (1975), 57–60
J. ten Hoor: The Transition from Psalmody to Hymnody in the Christian Reformed Church (thesis, Arizona State U., 1976)
A.R. Brouwer: Reformed Church Roots (New York, 1977)
G.F. De Jong: The Dutch Reformed Church in the American Colonies (Grand Rapids, MI, 1978)
Liturgy and Music in Reformed Worship: Grand Rapids 1979 (Grand Rapids, MI, 1979)
V.K. Folgers: ‘Hymnody in the Christian Reformed Church’, American Organist, xv/1 (1981), 28–9
B.F. Polman: Church Music and Liturgy in the Christian Reformed Church of North America (diss., U. of Minnesota, 1981)
D.R. Steele: ‘Hymnody in the Reformed Church in America’, American Organist, xv/9 (1981), 29 only
R. Zuiderveld: ‘Some Musical Traditions in Dutch Reformed Churches in America’, The Hymn, xxxvi/9 (1985), 23–5
J.L.H. Brumm: Singing the Lord’s Song (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990) [RCA]
E.R. Brink and B. Polman, eds.: Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI, 1998)