The British hymnologist John Wilson (see SDAH 397) asked Fred Pratt Green (1903-    ; see Biographies) to write a new hymn poem for the tune CHILSWELL, by Gustav Holst (see SDAH 224). So he wrote this hymn about singers singing, based on Psalm 118:14, RSV: “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” Erik Routley published it in Westminster Praise, 1976, a supplement for the use of the students at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey. As printed by Hope Publishing Company in The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green, 1982, the second line of stanza 3 reads “Who praises God the wrath of man disowns.” In order to include everyone, this was changed to “Who praises God our human wrath disowns.” In the final stanza, the author goes beyond the usual creativity and says, “God is our Silence when no songs are sung,” recognizing the times when we might be emotionally overcome that singing is impossible. Then faith carries us through the period of silence until  we can again find the voice of praise.

The tune OLD 124^TH (so called because it is the setting of the metrical version of Psalm 124) is one of the legacies from the Genevan Psalter, 1551, as compiled by Louis Bourgeois, born about 1510. Bourgeois was a follower of John Calvin in Genevan Switzerland, and was in complete charge of the music for the psalters there from about 1541 to 1557. When he arrived, they had a psalter with some 30 tunes. As a result of his genius at finding appropriate tunes and arranging them in four-part harmony, and in composing original tunes, the psalter had 85 when he left. All was not easy for Bourgeois under Calvin’s stern discipline. He experienced the gamut from enjoying full citizen’s rights and exemption from serving on duty, to being jailed for making unauthorized changes in some of the tunes! After Bourgeois was scolded, Calvin secured his release. The alterations that caused his arrest were later officially sanctioned. However, he was unable to get the approval of the Genevan authorities to introduce part-singing in public worship, so he returned to Paris where he could have more freedom. At this point he seemed to vanish from sight, as nothing more is known of his life. 

Dr. Robert Bridges says of him, “Historians who wish to give a true philosophical account of Calvin’s influence at Geneva ought probably to refer a great part of it to the enthusiasm attendant on the singing of Bourgeois’ melodies.” Erik Routley (se SDAH 13) acclaims these Genevan Psalter tunes to be the “fountainhead of the whole tradition of English and Scottish hymnody.”Other tunes from the Genevan Psalter are: OLD HUNDREDTH, SDAH 16 and 695, and RENDEZ A DIEU, SDAH 13, which Bourgeois wrote for La Forme des Prieres, 1545, commonly known as the first “Genevan Psalter” and published in Strasburg.