Loys “Louis” Bourgeois ( c. 1510 – 1559) was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance., who is most famous as one of the main compilers of Calvinist hymn tunes in the middle of the 16th century and is commonly credited with.one of the best known melodies in all of Christendom, the Protestant doxology known as the Old 100th. Bourgeois was born in Paris around 1510. Next to nothing is known about his early life. His first publication, some secular chansons, dates from 1539 in Lyon. By 1545 he had followed John Calvin to Geneva (according to civic records), where he was song director at the Church of St. Peters, and become a music teacher there. In 1547 he was granted citizenship in Geneva, and in that same year he also published his first four-voice psalms.
In 1549 and 1550 Bourgeois worked on a collections of psalm-tunes, most of which were translated by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze. The extent to which he was composer, arranger or compiler was not certain, until a long-lost copy of the Genevan Psalter of 1551 came to the library of the Rutgers University. In an Avertissement (note) to the reader Bourgeois specifies exactly what his predecessors had done, what he had changed and which were his own contributions. He is one of the three main composers of the hymn tunes to the Genevan Psalter.
The tune Old Hundredth first appeared in the Genevan Psalter of 1551, which Bourgeois edited, with Ps. 134. It is often attributed to Guillaume Franc (1520-1570) and sometimes dated 1543 but was apparently adapted by Bourgeois. The melody was then used with Ps. 100 in William Kethe’s Four-Score and Seven Psalms of David published in 1561 at Geneva, and has been associated with it ever since. There is no definite information available about the date and place of Kethe’s birth, but it is generally believed that he was a native of Scotland. His early life is unknown, but he was a Puritan who, because of the Marian persecution by Catholics of Protestants in 1555, went into exile at Frankfort, Germany, and then in 1558 moved to Geneva, Switzerland. There, he seems to have been engaged in helping to translate the Geneva Bible which came out in 1560.
Also Kethe assisted with the publication of John Day’s Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561 where his renderings of 25 psalms appeared. “All People that on Earth Do Dwell” was included in that first edition. Later editions came out in 1562 and 1564. The Psalter editors often tinkered with the metrical psalm arrangements from one edition to the next, which may explain why there are some variations in the wording of this one in different songbooks. After Elizabeth I came to the throne, Kethe returned to England in 1561 where he became minister of the church of Childe Okeford in Dorsetshire, and in 1563 and again in 1569 served as chaplain to Elizabeth’s forces under the Earl of Warwick at Havre. His death is usually given as having occurred on June 6, 1594, at Dorsetshire, England, but various sources place it as early as 1593 or as late as 1608.
Bourgeois is the one most responsible for the tunes in the Genevan Psalter, the source for the hymns of both the Reformed Church in England and the Pilgrims in America. In the original versions by Bourgeois, the music is monophonic, in accordance with the dictates of John Calvin, who disapproved not only of counterpoint but of any multiple parts; Bourgeois though did also provide four-part harmonizations, but they were reserved for singing and playing at home. Many of the four-part settings are syllabic and chordal, a style which has survived in many Protestant church services to the present day.
Unfortunately, Bourgeois fell afoul of local musical authorities and was sent to prison on December 3, 1551, for changing the tunes for some well-known psalms “without a license.” He was released on the personal intervention of John Calvin, but the controversy continued as those who had already learned the tunes had no desire to learn new versions, and the town council ordered the burning of Bourgeois’s instructions to the singers, claiming they were confusing. Shortly after this incident, Bourgeois left Geneva never to return. He settled in Lyon, his Geneva employment was terminated, and his wife tardily followed him to Lyon.
While in Lyon, Bourgeois wrote a fierce piece of invective against the publishers of Geneva. Sometime before 1560 he had moved to Paris. Curiously, his daughter was baptized as a Catholic, and also in 1560 a Parisian publisher produced a volume of secular chansons by the composer—a form he had condemned as “dissolute” during his Geneva years. This was his last publication during his lifetime. He died in Paris around 1559 or 1560. Of the tunes in the Genevan Psalter, some are reminiscent of secular chansons, others are directly borrowed from the Strasbourg Psalter. The remainder were composed by successively Guillaume Franc, Louis Bourgeois and Pierre Davantès. By far the most famous of Bourgeois’ compositions is the tune known as the Old 100th. Originally, it had a rather sprightly rhythm, which Queen Elizabeth scornfully called one of those “Geneva jigs.” The more sedate form and modern harmonization that is familiar today is sometimes credited to Joseph Barnby (1838-1896)
The following work by Louis Bourgeois is contained in my collection:
Old Hundred or “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.”
walkerhomeschoolblog 