Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/781

PSALTER. Bass, an arrangement rendered necessary by the entire absence, at the Restoration, of trained trebles.

This publication had no great success, a result ascribed by the author to the folio size of the book, which he admits matle it inconvenient to 'carry to church.' His second psalter, therefore, which he brought out six years later, was printed in 8vo. The settings are here again in plain counterpoint, but this time the work contains the whole of the Church tunes. The title is as follows:—

"The whole book of Psalms, collected into English metre by Sternhold Hopkins, &c. With the usual Hymns and Spiritual Songs, and all the ancient and modern tunes sung in Churches, composed in three parts, Cantus Medius and Bassus. In a more plain and useful method than hath been heretofore published. By John Playford. 1677."

Playford gives no reason for setting the tunes in three parts only, but we know that this way of writing was much in favour with English composers after the Restoration, and remained so till the time of Handel. Three-part counterpoint had been much used in earlier days by the secular school of Henry the Eighth's time, but its prevalence at this period was probably due to the fact that it was a favourite form of composition with Carissimi and his Italian and French followers, whose influence with the English school of the Restoration was paramount.

This was the last complete setting of the Church tunes, and for a hundred years afterwards it continued to be printed for the benefit of those who still remained faithful to the old melodies, and the old way of setting them. In 1757 the book had reached its 20th edition.

Playford generally receives the credit, or discredit, of having reduced the Church tunes to notes of equal value, since in his psalters they appear in minims throughout, except the first and last notes of sections, where the semibreve is retained; but it will be found, on referring to the current editions of Sternhold, that this had already been done, probably by the congregations themselves, and that he has taken the tunes as he found them in the authorized version. His settings also have often been blamed, and it must be confessed that compared with most of his predecessors, he is only a tolerable musician, though he thought himself a very good one; but this being admitted, he is still deserving of praise for having made, in the publication of his psalters, an intelligent attempt to assist in the general work of reconstruction; and if he failed to effect the permanent restoration of the older kind of psalmody, it was in fact not so much owing to his weakness, as to the natural development of new tendencies in the art of music.

The new metrical translations afterwards brought out were always intended, like those of the Commonwealth, to be sung to the Church tunes; and each work usually contained a small selection, consisting of those most in use, together with a few new ones. Concurrently with these appeared a large number of publications,—Harmonious Companions, Psalm Singer's Magazines, etc., which contained all the favourite tunes, old and new, set generally in four parts. Through one or other of these channels most of the leading musicians of this and the following century contributed to the popular Psalmody. Both tunes and settings now became very various in character, and side by side with settings made for Este's Psalter might be found compositions of which the following fragment will give some idea.

On the next page is the original setting of the 44th Psalm by Blancks.

The fact most strongly impressed upon the mind after going through a number of these publications, extending over a period of one hundred and fifty years, is that the quality and character of the new tunes and settings in no way depends, as in the case of the old psalters, upon the date at which they were written. Dr. Howard's beautiful tune, St. Bride, for instance, was composed thirty or forty years after the strange production given above; his tune, however, must not be taken as a sign of any general improvement, things having rather gone from bad to worse. The truth seems to be that the popular tradition of psalmody having been hopelessly broken during the Commonwealth, and individual taste and ability having become the only deciding forces in the production of tunes, the composers of the 17th and 18th centuries, in the exercise of their discretion, chose sometimes to imitate the older style, and sometimes to employ the inferior methods of contemporary music. To the public the question of style seems to have been a matter of the most perfect indifference.

Sternhold continued to be printed as an authorized version until the second decade of the present century. The version of Tate and Brady remained in favour twenty or thirty years longer, and was only superseded by the hymnals now in actual use. [ H. E. W. ]

PUCITTA,. Line 1 of article, for Rome read Civita Vecchia.

PUPPO,. Line 2 of article, add day of birth, June 12, and l. 6 from end, that of death, April 19.