Psalm 118

Rendez à Dieu louange et gloire

also paraphrased as
Give to the Lord all praise and honour
Give thanks to God for all his goodness

with
GENEVAN 98/118

I. French Text

One of Jean Calvin’s most enduring contributions to the worship life of the Christian church was his leadership in the development and completion of an entire psalter paraphrased into French with suitable tunes. This project was built on the efforts of Clément Marot (ca. 1497–1544), who had produced a set of thirty paraphrases between 1533 and 1539. These initially circulated in manuscript form, and some of them were adopted into Calvin’s first partial psalter, Aulcuns pseaulmes et cantiques mys en chant (Strasbourg, 1539). Nineteen more (plus the Song of Simeon) were published in 1543.

Marot’s paraphrase of Psalm 118, “Rendez à Dieu louange et gloire,” was first published in Trente devx Pseavlmes de Dauid . . . Plus vingt autres Pseaulmes Nouuellement enuoyez au Roy par ledit Marot (Paris, 1543 | Fig. 1), and in Cinquante pseavmes en Francois par Clem. Marot (Geneva, 1543), both without music. French scholar Gérard Defaux regarded Cinquante pseavmes to be the corrected version of Trente devx Pseavlmes.[1] The complete text spanned 28 quatrains.

In producing his paraphrases, Marot is believed to have referred to the Psalm commentary by Martin Bucer (1491–1551), S. Psalmorvm Libri Qvinqve Ad Ebraicam Veritatem Versi (1529 | BSB online), especially in the development of the headings (the arguments), but also in some of his interpretation. His work also shows a concern for imitating the original Hebrew rather than relying on a Latin or French translation of the Psalms.

Marot scholar Dick Wursten has noted how Marot followed Martin Bucer’s example in adding a Christological connection to Psalm 118.[2] Also according to Wursten, this rendition of Psalm 118 shows how Marot, in his later paraphrases, was not always concerned with the ability of his paraphrases to be sung:

Marot at some point (and this is the novelty) liberated himself from the ‘rule’ that every biblical verse deserves an equivalent length of poetic verse (ver-setz/couplet), and he did not feel bound any longer by the ‘rule’ of a strophic paraphrase. . . . in Psalm 118, one even[-numbered] verse ends with a comma . . . [which] results in a stanza without a proper ending. . . . From this we infer that making it possible to sing the paraphrases as hymns was not his first preoccupation.[3]

In thinking about how Marot selected the psalms he chose to paraphrase, and his regard for a courtly audience, Psalm 118 belongs to a class of psalms dealing with the nature of kingship.[4] Marot’s paraphrase is bookended by the same opening and closing quatrain, like the bookends of the original psalm.

For critical editions of Marot’s text, see Lenselink (1969), Mayer (1980), and/or Defaux (1993/1995).

II. French Tune

The first musical setting of Marot’s “Rendez à Dieu louange et gloire” appeared in La forme des prières et chants ecclésiastiques (Strasbourg, 1545), now lost. This and the other early Strasbourg printings (1548, 1553) have been documented by Pidoux (1962).

The oldest surviving publication of both text and tune is in Pseavlmes cinqvante de David roy et prophète (Lyon, 1547), which was published in two partbooks, a superius/tenor book and an altus/bassus book, music arranged by Loys Bourgeois, melody being in the tenor part (Fig. 2).

This printing includes the first eight quatrains of Marot’s text. The designation at the top, “Pseaulme XLIIII,” is not the proper psalm number, rather it is the numerical sequence of the melody within the book. The Latin phrase “Confitemini Domino, quoniam” is the opening text (the incipit) of the Latin version of the psalm.

The melody is often attributed to Bourgeois, but his involvement in the Strasbourg collections (1545, etc.) is unclear, so his authorship cannot be assumed. Additionally, when Bourgeois edited his first Genevan collection, Pseaumes octantetrois de David (1551 | Fig. 3), he altered some of the tunes, including this one, drawing the ire of the Council of Geneva, which would seem to suggest he was not the original composer. His revised version was retained as the official version of the Genevan psalters. The original melody is quite possibly by Bourgeois’ predecessor, Guillaume Franc (1515–1570), a director and professor of music in Geneva from 1541 to 1545.

In this revised version, notice especially the change in the second phrase, leaping to 5 rather than continuing on 2. Here the text has been reformatted as 14 stanzas of eight lines, rather than the original 28 stanzas of four lines.

Fig. 3. Pseaumes octantetrois de David (Geneva: 1551).

This has been one of the most successful of the Genevan melodies to cross over into English use. It contains some memorable repetitions, yielding a phrase structure of abacdefc. Erik Routley remarked, “It is one of the simplest and most moving even of this great series of tunes.”[5] Carl Daw has prepared one of the most detailed assessments of the tune, an introductory excerpt of which is given here:

This is one of the most celebrated Genevan tunes, second only to GENEVAN 134 in use. Although it has merely an octave range (from dominant to dominant) and an unexceptional . . . phrase structure, it achieves a remarkable sense of grandeur, largely through the careful management of descending scales.[6]

For additional study of the earliest variants of the melody, see Pidoux (1962), vol. 1.

III. Additional Harmonization

Many hymnals use the four-part harmonization composed by Claude Goudimel (1514–1572), published in Les cent cinquante Pseaumes de David (1564–1565), in separate partbooks, melody in the tenor part (Fig. 4).

For a complete transcription of all four parts and a description of surviving editions, see Pierre Pidoux, Claude Goudimel Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 9 (NY: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1967). This harmonization is often adapted to have the melody appear in the soprano part.

IV. English Paraphrase (Craig)

The French version of Psalm 118 was adopted into the Scottish psalters starting with The Forme of Prayers and Ministration of Sacraments . . . with the Whole Psalmes of Dauid in English Meter (Edinburgh: Robert Lekprevik, 1564), and continuing through the 1635 edition of the Scottish psalms.

Fig. 5. The Forme of Prayers and Ministration of Sacraments . . . with the Whole Psalmes of Dauid in English Meter (Edinburgh: Robert Lekprevik, 1564).

This paraphrase of Psalm 118 by John Craig (1512–1600), “Give to the Lord all praise and honour,” is less concerned with being a translation of the French than in being a faithful rendering of the biblical text, as can be seen in the way the corresponding Bible verse numbers are given for reference. For the most part, Craig crafted four lines for every verse of the psalm, except in a couple of places where there are only two. Craig had given himself some flexibility by not trying to rhyme every line, instead allowing himself alternating rhymes of abcbdefe, versus Marot’s more ambitious ababcdcd. Like Marot’s paraphrase, Craig’s version is bookended by the same quatrain, although with slight variations in lines 2 and 4.

A nineteenth-century scholar supplied this brief biographical sketch of Craig:

John Craig (I.C.) became minister of Holyrood House, and of the King’s household, after an absence of his native country of 24 years. He had been a monk of the Order of St. Dominic at Bologna, in Italy, but having embraced the Protestant faith narrowly escaped martyrdom. He died on 4th December, 1600, aged 88.[7]

Craig’s paraphrase was replaced in the 1650 Scottish psalter, The Psalms of David in Meeter, with a more condensed rendering in a different meter, “O praise the Lord for he is good,” predominantly two lines for every Scripture verse.

For another English metrical translation based on Marot, see John Standish, All the French Psalm Tunes with English Words (1632; 2nd ed. 1650), “To God give thanks, all praises render.”

V. English Paraphrase (Wiersma)

In modern English hymnals and psalters, when RENDEZ À DIEU is still used as a setting for Psalm 118, it most often appears with “Give thanks to God for all his goodness,” written by Stanley Wiersma (1930–1986) in 1982 for inclusion in The Psalter Hymnal (1987 | Fig. 6). At the time, Wiersma was a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His paraphrase contains the recurring phrase “His/Your love forever is the same,” including at the ends of every stanza, rather than the bookend treatment as in Marot and Craig. Wiersma’s text is also more economical than the others, fitting the entire psalm into five stanzas.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
8 October 2020

For uses of this tune with French and English paraphrases of Psalm 98, see “Chantez à Dieu nouveau cantique.”

Footnotes:

1. Gérard Defaux, Cinquante pseaumes de David (1995), p. 306.

2. Dick Wursten, Clément Marot and Religion (2010), p. 190 n. 22.

3. Dick Wursten, Clément Marot and Religion (2010), p. 310.

4. Dick Wursten, Clément Marot and Religion (2010), p. 323.

5. Erik Routley, “RENDEZ À DIEU,” Companion to Congregational Praise (London: Independent Press, 1953), p. 158.

6. Carl P. Daw Jr. “RENDEZ À DIEU,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), p. 378.

7. J.W. MacMeeken, History of the Scottish Metrical Psalms (Glasgow: M’Culloch & Co., 1872), pp. 8–9: Archive.org

Related Resources:

Pierre Pidoux & Samuel Jan Lenselink, Le Psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle, 3 vols. (Bärenreiter, 1962–1969): WorldCat

Claude Albert Mayer, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 6 (Geneve: Slatkine, 1980).

Kenneth Trickett, “RENDEZ À DIEU,” Companion to Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1988), p. 296.

Bert Polman, “Give thanks to God for all his goodness,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1987), pp. 253–254.

Gérard Defaux, Clément Marot: Œuvres poétiques complètes, 2 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1993): WorldCat

Gérard Defaux, Cinquante pseaumes de David (Paris: H. Champion, 1995): WorldCat

Dick Wursten, Clément Marot and Religion: A Reassessment in the Light of His Psalm Paraphrases (Boston: Brill, 2010).

Carl P. Daw Jr. “RENDEZ À DIEU,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), p. 378.

Joseph Herl, “RENDEZ À DIEU,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia, 2019), pp. 826–827.