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I think these things below interesting. They are excerpts from articles on Reformed music in Calvin's time.
Kenith
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Foote writes in Three Centuries Of American Hymnody (Harvard Press 1940) about the tune Old Hundreth (known to most as the doxology tune) that it was given shape by Louis Bourgeois, although the first line is taken from a secular chanson. When it was taken over in the English Psalter the notation of the last line was slightly altered from the Genevan form. It immediately became popular and our forefathers liked it because it was a jocound and lively air! We think of it as solemn and stately, rather than as lively, because we are familiar with the form in which it emerged in the 18th century usage. When sung, however, in the early form and in fairly quick time it reveals the almost gay character which made it a fitting setting for the words It was the vigor and liveliness of a number of these Genevan Psalm tunes that led critics to dub them Geneva jigs. To a writer of a century ago it seemed strange, indeed, that the very tunes that send us to sleep caused our forefathers to dance. But he was unaware that between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 19th century the Psalm tunes were deliberately lengthened out by giving their notes equal length, and singing was slowed down in the supposed interest of solemnity. (pg. 15)
(From RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource )
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From http://www.kingsley.vic.edu.au/glenobrien/worshiplecture6.htm we have this:
Calvin on Music
Calvin endorsed only the congregational singing of metrical versions of the Psalms.
He favoured music in the home and in school life, but feared that its use in church would distract worshippers from more spiritual worship. With the help of the French court poet Clement Marot, and Calvins colleague Theodore Beza, all 150 Psalms were set to metre in the Genevan Psalter of 1562. These were to be sung, in French, by the congregation with no musical accompaniment.
The music editor of this work was Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510-1561) who adapted tunes from French and German secular songs and bits of Gregorian chant, as well as composing some of his own music in similar styles. These were very different from other church music of the time. Their dance rhythms led some to mock them as Geneva jigs.
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Here is a section from and article in the RTS Reformed Quarterly titled "Bach, Bubba, and the Blues Brothers."
What I believe we have seen in twenty centuries of church music is Christ calling forth His song from every culture His gospel has touched. Even when believers attempt distinctly "Christian" music, their music invariably bears the marks of their social world, and indeed would be incomprehensible without those marks. Elizabeth I could mock "Geneva jigs" precisely because many of the psalm settings emanating from Calvins church sounded like the dance songs for which Continental European troubadours were famous. Jesus sings Gods covenantal faithfulness and the width of His mercy in as many musical dialects as there are peoples who embrace Him.
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From Greyfriers Free Church in Scotland:
It was the practice of the Reformed church to set the psalms in the same metre as the popular songs and ballads of the day, so that familiar secular tunes could also be used in worship. The result was that the new tunes were dismissed as 'Genevan jigs' by traditionalists who preferred the familiar Latin hymns.
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From an article titled Introduction to the Genevan Psalter by David T. Koyzis, Redeemer University College
By contrast, the Genevan tunes are set to wonderfully irregular metres and the tunes themselves have a pronounced rhythmic intensity and modal flavour, making them sound more like Renaissance madrigals than conventional hymns. Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have derisively called them Genevan jigs, because of their dance-like qualities
++++++++++
From and article titled American Folk Hymnody in Illinois, 1800-1850
As the singing masters moved south, they found sacred texts sung to the melodies of the old ballads and other Anglo-Celtic songs in the back country of the South. [7] Very little record has been left of the origin of this body of music, since it came out of the same oral tradition as the ballads and fiddle tunes brought to America by Scots-Irish settlers who took to the Appalachian back country before the American Revolution. "In bringing jigs, country dances, and old love songs and ballads into hymnody, these folk were not merely religious radicals, they were religious revolutionaries as well," writes Charles W. Joyner of South Carolina. "This showed no lack of respect for religion; on the contrary, the upcountry folk brought one of their most loved and treasured possessions -- their musical heritage -- and laid it on the altar of their faith" (64). Many of the tunes are modal, sung in the haunting minor keys of the southern Appalachians (Horn, 17-18; Jackson, White Spirituals 158-63)). So when the tunebook collectors reached the Southern hill country, they found a distinguished body of music to work with.
Kenith
*************
Foote writes in Three Centuries Of American Hymnody (Harvard Press 1940) about the tune Old Hundreth (known to most as the doxology tune) that it was given shape by Louis Bourgeois, although the first line is taken from a secular chanson. When it was taken over in the English Psalter the notation of the last line was slightly altered from the Genevan form. It immediately became popular and our forefathers liked it because it was a jocound and lively air! We think of it as solemn and stately, rather than as lively, because we are familiar with the form in which it emerged in the 18th century usage. When sung, however, in the early form and in fairly quick time it reveals the almost gay character which made it a fitting setting for the words It was the vigor and liveliness of a number of these Genevan Psalm tunes that led critics to dub them Geneva jigs. To a writer of a century ago it seemed strange, indeed, that the very tunes that send us to sleep caused our forefathers to dance. But he was unaware that between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 19th century the Psalm tunes were deliberately lengthened out by giving their notes equal length, and singing was slowed down in the supposed interest of solemnity. (pg. 15)
(From RUF Hymnbook Online Hymn Resource )
++++++++
From http://www.kingsley.vic.edu.au/glenobrien/worshiplecture6.htm we have this:
Calvin on Music
Calvin endorsed only the congregational singing of metrical versions of the Psalms.
He favoured music in the home and in school life, but feared that its use in church would distract worshippers from more spiritual worship. With the help of the French court poet Clement Marot, and Calvins colleague Theodore Beza, all 150 Psalms were set to metre in the Genevan Psalter of 1562. These were to be sung, in French, by the congregation with no musical accompaniment.
The music editor of this work was Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510-1561) who adapted tunes from French and German secular songs and bits of Gregorian chant, as well as composing some of his own music in similar styles. These were very different from other church music of the time. Their dance rhythms led some to mock them as Geneva jigs.
++++++++++++
Here is a section from and article in the RTS Reformed Quarterly titled "Bach, Bubba, and the Blues Brothers."
What I believe we have seen in twenty centuries of church music is Christ calling forth His song from every culture His gospel has touched. Even when believers attempt distinctly "Christian" music, their music invariably bears the marks of their social world, and indeed would be incomprehensible without those marks. Elizabeth I could mock "Geneva jigs" precisely because many of the psalm settings emanating from Calvins church sounded like the dance songs for which Continental European troubadours were famous. Jesus sings Gods covenantal faithfulness and the width of His mercy in as many musical dialects as there are peoples who embrace Him.
+++++++++++++++
From Greyfriers Free Church in Scotland:
It was the practice of the Reformed church to set the psalms in the same metre as the popular songs and ballads of the day, so that familiar secular tunes could also be used in worship. The result was that the new tunes were dismissed as 'Genevan jigs' by traditionalists who preferred the familiar Latin hymns.
+++++++++++++
From an article titled Introduction to the Genevan Psalter by David T. Koyzis, Redeemer University College
By contrast, the Genevan tunes are set to wonderfully irregular metres and the tunes themselves have a pronounced rhythmic intensity and modal flavour, making them sound more like Renaissance madrigals than conventional hymns. Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have derisively called them Genevan jigs, because of their dance-like qualities
++++++++++
From and article titled American Folk Hymnody in Illinois, 1800-1850
As the singing masters moved south, they found sacred texts sung to the melodies of the old ballads and other Anglo-Celtic songs in the back country of the South. [7] Very little record has been left of the origin of this body of music, since it came out of the same oral tradition as the ballads and fiddle tunes brought to America by Scots-Irish settlers who took to the Appalachian back country before the American Revolution. "In bringing jigs, country dances, and old love songs and ballads into hymnody, these folk were not merely religious radicals, they were religious revolutionaries as well," writes Charles W. Joyner of South Carolina. "This showed no lack of respect for religion; on the contrary, the upcountry folk brought one of their most loved and treasured possessions -- their musical heritage -- and laid it on the altar of their faith" (64). Many of the tunes are modal, sung in the haunting minor keys of the southern Appalachians (Horn, 17-18; Jackson, White Spirituals 158-63)). So when the tunebook collectors reached the Southern hill country, they found a distinguished body of music to work with.
