Talk:Comfort, comfort, ye my people (Louis Bourgeois)

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This entry is confusing. Normally the composer is quoted in the listing, here the translator (Catherine Winkworth). The page gives the composer as Bach, but this is contradicted elsewhere giving Bourgeois as composer. Suggest Bourgeois arr. Bach should be the acknowledgement.

Music source:

Even worse, the melody is due neither to Bourgeois nor to Bach, but it seems to originate as the tune for Psalm 42, by Claude Goudimel (1514-1572). The present score seems to have been copied from a hymnal which only gives the melody and not the harmonization.

Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) was an prolific translator of German hymns, but to the best of my knowledge she never composed any music at all. Also, note the correct spelling of her first name is 'Catherine' (I'm well aware of this confusion since my mother's first name is spelled 'Catharine'). ChuckGiffen

Psalm 42 is from Louis (or Loys) Bourgeois, who was the cantor form Geneva and produced part of the melodies for the Genevan Psalter. Goudimel is often named as the composer, because his SATB musical settings appeared almost immediately after the completion of the psalter and were so popular during the centuries, that Bourgeois was long forgotten... Sources compiled in 1960's by Pierre Pidoux "Freu dich sehr" is a lutheran hymn on this tune, which elaborates freely on part of the text... Thats why I changed it.. Dick Wursten

You're entirely right. The melody with its rhythm as given appears in several hymnbooks with the harmonization attributed to Goudimel - of course the tune is from the Genevan Psalter with Bourgeois as the composer of this tune. Sorry for the confusion. ChuckGiffen

All's well that ends well. ! BTW do you know why they call the Old Hundredth the Old Hundredth, the melody being that of psalm 134, and not 100

My understanding is that the tune for Psalm 134 was renumbered as Psalm 100 in the Scottish Psalter and is often listed as OLD ONE-HUNDREDTH in contemporary hymnals, thereby masking its Genevan origins. ChuckGiffen