John 6:22-58 - The hymn, Father, we Thank Thee (LSB 652) is a liturgical hymn based on John
6. The point of Jesus’ teaching and the text of the hymn is that to live
spiritually we need the bread which comes from heaven namely our Lord and
Savior Jesus. As Christ is received we as the children of God live new lives.
Throughout the next several weeks we will be focusing on Jesus’ teaching on
this import chapter from the gospel of John.
Louis Bourgeois (b. Paris, France, c. 1510; d. Paris, 1561).
In both his early and later years Bourgeois wrote French songs to entertain the
rich, but in the history of church music he is known especially for his
contribution to the Genevan Psalter. Apparently moving to Geneva in 1541, the
same year John Calvin returned to Geneva from Strasbourg, Bourgeois served as
cantor and master of the choristers at both St. Pierre and St. Gervais, which
is to say he was music director there under the pastoral leadership of Calvin.
Bourgeois used the choristers to teach the new psalm tunes to the congregation.
The extent of Bourgeois's involvement in the Genevan Psalter
is a matter of scholarly debate. Calvin had published several partial
psalters, including one in Strasbourg in 1539 and another in Geneva in 1542,
with melodies by unknown composers. In 1551 another French psalter appeared in
Geneva, Eighty-three Psalms of David, with texts by Marot and de Beze, and with
most of the melodies by Bourgeois, who supplied thirty four original tunes and
thirty-six revisions of older tunes. This edition was republished repeatedly,
and later Bourgeois's tunes were incorporated into the complete Genevan Psalter
(1562). However, his revision of some older tunes was not uniformly
appreciated by those who were familiar with the original versions; he was
actually imprisoned overnight for some of his musical arrangements but freed
after Calvin's intervention.
No comments:
Post a Comment