OLD HUNDREDTH

OLD HUNDREDTH. This is the most durable of all hymn tunes in the English-language repertory. Associated with William Kethe*’s version of Psalm 100 (‘All people that on earth do dwell’*) from its first printing in the Anglo-Genevan psalter of 1560, it was taken from the French Genevan Psalter* of 1551 (see ‘French Protestant psalms’*). Indeed, like all Kethe’s psalm versions, this one was written to fit the French tune. Loys Bourgeois* had originally provided the tune for Théodore de Bèze*’s metrical version of Psalm 134, ‘Or sus, serviteurs du Seigneur’. There is no evidence, however, that it was composed by Bourgeois, as many hymnals suggest. It is in fact put together from phrases that...