English &Scottish Psalm &Hymn Tunes, c. 1543-1677 by Maurice FrostReview by: Irving LowensNotes, Second Series, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Dec., 1953), pp. 100-101Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/893612 .

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hand, could be more gratifying to me (and to many others, I am sure) than to hear a great virtuoso openly renounce virtuosity as the basis for the under- standing and the performance of Scar- latti's works, and to read that "all of us,

especially the young, have been guilty of playing Scarlatti too fast" (p. 294; NB: how about Bach?). This is one of the many remarks indicative of the high level of Mr. Kirkpatrick's book.

WILLI APEL

English & Scottish Psalm & Hymn Tunes, c. 1543-1677. By Maurice Frost. London, New York, Toronto: SPCK [Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge] and Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press. 1953. rxvi. 531 p.. music. bibl.. 8vo: 5/5/-. S21.001

The body of religious song so exhaus- tively examined in this important study is one of the lesiser known products of the golden age of English music. Many of the great men of the period-Tye, Tallis, Gibbons, Damon, Este, Allison, Farnaby, Dowland, Ravenscroft, Purcell, Playford, Lawes, for example-contri- buted in greater or lesser degree to the development of psalmody. Such a dis- tinguished roster is as good a guarantee of musical interest as one is likely to find anywhere, and yet, curiously enough, the field has been studiously avoided by most of today's musicologists, a point which a survey of its modern literature makes amply clear. This state of affairs may be at least partly attributed to the lack of just such a vade mecum as that here presented by Maurice Frost, and it is highly gratifying to be able to re- port that he has in large measure suc- ceeded in converting chaos into decent order. Scholars may now walk without stumbling on the paths he has opened.

The book is divided into two parts. The first contains those tunes set to the metrical version of the psalms prepared by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins (the Old Version) which dominated the English scene until the end of the seven- teenth century. All tunes appearing in the Anglo-Genevan psalters of 1556, 1558, 1561, the English psalters of 1560, 1561, 1562, 1563, 1570, the Scottish psalters of 1564-65, 1594, 1602, 1611, 1615, 1625, 1633, 1634, 1635, and the harmonized psalters by Damon (1579, 1591), Este (1592), Allison (1599), Ravenscroft (1621), and Playford (1671, 1677) are set down as they first appeared in print. Where the tunes are traceable to earlier

French or German sources, the conti- nental versions are also notated. In the second part of the book, the tunes asso- ciated with other metrical versions of the psalter are given. The books selected for analysis are Coverdale's ca. 1543 Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes, Seager's 1553 partial psalter, Tye's 1553 Actes of the Apostles, Parker's ca. 1560- 67 psalter (the music by Tallis), Ains- worth's 1612 psalter, Prys' 1621 Welsh psalter, Wither's 1621 Songs of the Old Testament and his 1623 Hymnes and Songs of the Church (the music by Gib- bons), Sandys' 1638 Paraphrase upon the Psalmes of David (the music by Lawes), and Barton's 1644 psalter. The tunes from Hunnis' 1583 Seven Sobs of a Sor- rowfull Soule for Sinne, Tailour's 1615 Fifti Select Psalms, and Buchanan's 1588 Latin psalter (the music by Statius Olthof) are included in an appendix.

In the first section of the work (follow- ing bibliographical descriptions of the psalters), all tunes are listed in numer- ical sequence in order of the psalms and hymns to which they were attached when they first appeared in English dress, followed by the "Common Tunes" from the Scottish psalters (which were un- attached to particular psalms) and cer- tain tunes from Ravenscroft's 1621 psalter which seem to have appeared there for the first time. The tunes in the second section and in the appendix are grouped separately under the particular books in which they originally appeared.

It is immediately evident that the stu- dent is here presented with a great wealth of scarce materials, meticulously annotated as to origins, interrelationships, influence, and history in print. Very little

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of this information, and only a very small proportion of the music printed, is easily available elsewhere. Mr. Frost's scholarship and his attention to pertinent detail are beyond reproach, but it must be said that several minor sins of omis- sion are regrettable: for example, the bibliography is lamentably sparse, full collations of these excessively rare psal- ters are conspicuously absent, and Amer- ican locations have been omitted. A much more serious matter, however, is the author's rather ill-conceived plan of or- ganization, which makes the identification of any particular tune a difficult and time- consuming process. The inadequate in- dices supplied are of very small practical utility. At the very least, an index of tune names might have been expected, and it surely would have been no great task to make available some form of simple melodic index, perhaps similar to that used in the Hymnal 1940 Companion. Because this is an important book and

one which is likely to remain the stand- ard reference work in its field for some time to come, this reviewer feels that its publishers would be well advised to issue supplementary indices as a separate pamphlet.

Frost's work strongly suggests com- parison with that of Johannes Zahn who more than half a century ago gave to the world Die Melodien der deutschen evan- gelischen Kirchenlieder, one of the monu- ments of musicological research. The author modestly claims in his preface that he is merely attempting to lay the foundations for an English analogue to Zahn "upon which others . . . can build a worthy memorial to those who in time past have contributed to the Church's song," but one can predict with some certainty that scholars will for a long time be citing "Frost" as the last word in English psalmody before the eigh- teen'th century.

IRVING LowENs

Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I. By Walter L. Woodfill. (Princeton Studies in History, Vol. 9). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1953. rxiv. 372 n.. ilMuss. bibl. 8vo: $7.501

The editorial work of such men as the late Edmund H. Fellowes and Peter Warlock has made early English music accessible to countless amateurs and prac- tical musicians throughout the world. It is not surprising that the widespread enthusiams for the English madrigal and lute song fostered a picture of musical life in "merry England" which never actually existed outside of the Christmas card. In the popiular view every house- hold had its chest of viols and the family gathered around the table to sing madrigals after supper. The picture is obviously overdrawn, particularly so where the life of the professional musi- cian is concerned. Musicians then, as now, were hard put to justify their exist- ance in society; the preferred posts in the church and court were far too few, and the lot of the independent musician who supported himself with casual en- gagements at weddings, festivals, and funerals was anything but picturesque. Walter Woodfill is one of the first scholars to examine the Elizabethan musical scene

with the realistic eye of the trained his- torian (a similar approach is made by J. A. Westrup in his paper on "Domestic music under the Stuarts" in the Pro- ceedings of the Musical Association, 68th session, 1942). Woodfill's book gives a detailed analysis of all the records which pertain to the life of that comparatively small group of men in 16th and early 17th century England who earned their livelihood in the profession of music.

The great composers of English music enter into the picture only in an inci- dental way. Little or nothing is said about their contributions to their art. The focus of the study is directed to- ward the musicians as a group in English society of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. How were they recruited, how trained ? How much money did they make? How did they organize them- selves to protect the interests of their trade? What was their status in society? The data required to answer these ques- tions are scattered in numerous household books, municipal accounts, court records,

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