Claude Goudimel

Claude Goudimel

Source: Wikipedia

The 'Book of Psalms' has been of no small significance to sacred classical music, Christians singing from 'Psalms' ("prayers") from the begin, perhaps including Jesus who might well have hummed a 'Psalm' or so along dusty paths gone undocumented. Songs from 'Psalms', about half written by King David of Israel in the 9th and 10th centuries B.C., would have a strong presence throughout the history of choral music in Europe and gospel in the United States. Goudimel, whose principle fame rests in music for 'Psalms', was born between 1514 and 1520 in Besançon in eastern France near Switzerland. Earliest details about his life find him a student at the University of Paris in 1549, also publishing his first chansons that year in Paris in the initial of sixteen volumes printed by Nicolas du Chemin titled 'Chansons nouvelles' [Freedman]. CPDL has 'Il me semble que la journée' below published in 1550. One might assume that to be among 'Chansons nouvelles' but I've not found it in any edition and CPDL doesn't identify a source.

'Il me semble que la journée'   French chanson intended a 4 by Claude Goudimel

'It seems to me that the day'   Setting to poem by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

Pub unknown 1550 [CPDL]

Ensemble: Vocal Beata Musica directed by Gilles Grimaldi

Like other composers of the era, Goudimel was born into the lengthy war that was the Protestant Reformation versus the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Martin Luther, spearhead of the Reformation in Germany, had preached his last sermon on 14 Feb of 1546, to die four days later in Eisleben [Reformation Timeline]. By that time Lutheran doctrine had spread into the northeast portions of Goudimel's France. Across the Channel in England the Reformation at Goudimel's time was headed by theologian, Thomas Cranmer, and Tudor King, Edward VI, son of Henry VIII who had earlier been pronounced head of the Anglican Church by act of the Parliament. In the southwest of Goudimel's France the Reformation was headed by John Calvin with Huguenots his vehicle. Calvin issued his first edition of the 'Genevan Psalter' in French in 1539, that to the purpose of supplying Protestant churches a hymnal for congregational singing. The Psalter would eventually accrue to a complete collection of the 150 'Psalms' of the 'Old Testament' with melodies written by Clement Marot, Theodore de Beza, Louis Bourgeois, a few by Calvin and forty by one Maistre Pierre, perhaps Pierre Davantès. Four centuries later in 1972 the Canadian Reformed Churches published an English translation of Calvin's 'Psalter' titled 'Book of Praise'.

By 1555 Goudimel had entered into the publishing trade with printer, Nicolas Du Chemin. In 1557 he went to Metz and became a Protestant, involving himself with the Huguenot reform movement there. The first of Goudimel’s Genevan psalters was published in 1562 in Paris by Le Roy and Ballard. The melodies were taken from the Genevan Psalter of 1551. Apt to note here that in relating Goudimel to Calvin's hymnal it is always in terms of harmonies embellished upon melodies composed by others. It is those melodies that conservative church congregations sang, not Goudimel's polyphonic elaborations for multiple parts for performance in other settings. All instrumental interpretations below are by Ernst Stolz with the original composer given if known. Loys Bourgeois translates to Louis.

'Psalm 51' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Loys Bourgeois 1551

Organ and recorder: Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 52' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Organ and viols: Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 68' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Matthäus Greiter 1539

Instrumental by Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 71' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Loys Bourgeois 1551

Crumhorn & organ: Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 73' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Loys Bourgeois 1551

Recorder: Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 110' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Loys Bourgeois 1551

Instrumental by Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 145' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1562 by Claude Goudimel

Guitar & viol: Ernst Stolz

In 1564 'Vingt Six Cantiques Chantés au Seigneur' was published by librettist, Louis des Masures, for which Goudimel composed the four-part harmony. Also published in 1564 was the entirety of 150 psalms for Calvin's 'Genevan Psalter'.

'Psalm 2' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1564 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck 1539

Instrumental by Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 8' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1564 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Guillaume Franc 1542

Instrumental by Ernst Stolz

'Psalm 72' of the 'Genevan Psalter' of 1564 by Claude Goudimel

Original melody by Guillaume Franc 1543

Organ & viols by Ernst Stolz

As Metz was a Catholic town with enmity against Protestants increasing, Goudimel returned perhaps about 1467 to the less hostile environment, for Protestants anyway, of his birthplace, Besançon. He harmonized the whole 'Genevan Psalter' again for publishing in 1568. Goudimel made the fateful decision of leaving Besançon for Lyon in 1572. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in latter August that year, largely in Paris but other provinces as well, ended in the slaughter of some ten to thirty thousand Protestants, Goudimel among them. To be at the wrong place at the wrong time was nigh automatic for anyone anywhere in the Europe of Goudimel and all that had preceded for a few thousand years. Goudimel nevertheless left behind a corpus of above 70 secular chansons, sacred masses and numerous motets including those for the 'Genevan Psalter'.