A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bourgeois, Louis

BOURGEOIS, Louis, writer on the theory of music, born in Paris in the beginning of the 16th century. He followed Calvin in 1541 to Geneva, where he was cantor of one of the churches, but quarrelled with the presbytery, who would not allow him to introduce a harmonised version of the Psalms in public worship. He threw up his post, and returned in 1557 to Paris, where he was still living in 1561, but after that date all trace of him is lost. His great work is 'Le droict chemin de musique,' etc. (Geneva, 1550). In this he proposed a new system of notation, which was accepted not only by the Protestants, but by all French musicians' and not finally abandoned till the beginning of the 19th century. Bourgeois published several sets of Psalms in four parts.

[ F. G. ]

BOURGEOIS, Louis. To the article in vol. i, p. 263, add the following notice.

This musician, the son of Guillaume Bourgeois, was born in Paris at the beginning of the 16th century. In 1541 he was invited to Geneva about the time of Calvin's return from Strasburg. On the removal of Guillaume Franc to Lausanne in 1545 [see Franc in Appendix] his place was given to Bourgeois jointly with a Genevan named Guillaume Fabri, the former receiving 60, the latter 40 florins of the salary of 100 florins which had been paid to Franc. Of the personal history of Bourgeois we know nothing beyond what may be gathered from some notices of him in the registers of the Council of Geneva. These are curious as illustrative of the place and the time. In 1547 the Council admitted him gratuitously to the rights of citizenship 'in consideration of his being a respectable man and willing to teach children.' Shortly afterwards, to enable him the better to pursue his studies, they exempted him from duties connected with the town guard and the works of the fortifications, and presented him with a small china stove for his apartment. Before long his salary was for some reason reduced to 50 florins. On his petitioning that it should be restored to its former amount, or even slightly increased in consequence of his poverty, the parsimonious Council gave him two measures of corn 'for that once, and in consideration of an expected addition to his family.' To a second petition, even though supported by Calvin, they turned a deaf ear. On Dec. 3, 1551, Bourgeois was thrown into prison for having 'without leave' altered the tunes of some of the psalms, but through the intervention of Calvin obtained his release on the following day. The alterations, however, were sanctioned and adopted. Another innovation proposed by Bourgeois fared better with the Council. His recommendation to suspend a printed table in the churches to show what psalm was to be sung was approved of and rewarded by a donation of sixty sols.

In 1557 Bourgeois returned to Paris and was still living in 1561. His chief claim to notice at the present day arises from his connection with the Genevan Psalter. The authorship of the melodies in this remarkable collection has been long a subject of controversy. It has been attributed, wholly or in part, to several musicians of the time, to Bourgeois, Franc, Goudimel, Claudin Le Jeune and others. The claims set up for Goudimel and Le Jeune are easily disposed of. Neither of these composers ever visited Geneva or had any direct relations with Calvin. In 1557, when the greater part of the Genevan psalter had been already published, Goudimel was still a member of the Church of Rome. The Genevan psalter was completed in 1562, and it was not until that year that Goudimel published his 'Seize Pseaumes mis en musique à quatre parties, en forme de motets.' This was followed by the entire psalter, first in 1564 harmonized in double counterpoint, then in 1565 in simple counterpoint (generally note against note), and lastly in 1565–66 when Goudimel produced another arrangement of the psalms for three, four, or more voices in the form of motets.

Le Jeune was but 12 years of age in 1542 when the first edition of the Genevan psalter was published, and not above 21 in 1551 when the whole of Marot's and the first portion of Beza's translations had already appeared. In 1564 he published 'Dix Pseaumes de Dauid nouuellement composés à quatre parties, en forme de motets …' reprinted in 1580. The psalms are Marot's, but the music is entirely original. Le Jeune died in 1600, and his harmonized arrangements in four and five parts, of the Genevan melodies were not printed until the following year, nor that in three parts (Book I) until 1602.^[1] But long before the psalms of Goudimel and Le Jeune appeared, Bourgeois had himself harmonized the tunes up to that time included in the Genevan Psalter. In 1547 he published 'Pseaulmes cinquante de Dauid … traduictz … par Clement Marot, et mis en musique par Loys Bovrgeoys, à quatre parties, à voix de contrepoinct egal consonnante au verbe. Lyon, 1547.' In the same year he also published 'Le premier liure des Pseaulmes de Dauid, contenant xxiv. pseaulmes.^[2] Composé par Loys Bovrgeois. En diuersité de Musique: à scauoir familiere ou vaudeuille; aultres plus musicales … Lyon.' In the latter the words of the psalms are those of Marot, but the melodies are original and wholly different from those of the former work. All these harmonized psalters were intended only for private use. Down to the present century nothing beyond the melody of the psalms was tolerated in the worship of the Reformed Churches, and it was not improbably the aversion of Calvin to the use of harmony that compelled Bourgeois to print his psalters at Lyons instead of Geneva.^[3]

Before we consider more particularly the authorship of the melodies in the Genevan psalter, a brief account of the origin and development of that important collection must be given.

When Calvin, expelled from Geneva, went to Strasburg in 1538 he resolved, after the example of the Lutherans in Germany, to compile a psalter for the use of his own church. This, of which the only known copy has but recently come to light in the royal library at Munich, contains eighteen psalms, the Song of Simeon, the Decalogue, and the Creed, to each of which a melody is prefixed. Of the psalms the words of twelve are by Marot (i, 2, 3, 15, 19, 32, 51,^[4] 103, 114, 130, 137, and 143); of five (25, 36, 46, 91 and 138) with the Song of Simeon and the Decalogue, by Calvin himself, and of one (113) in prose. These psalms of Marot exhibit variations from the text first published by the author three years later, and must therefore have been obtained by Calvin in MS. from some private source. Calvin and Marot certainly met in 1536 at the court of Ferrara, but there is no evidence that any intimacy was then formed, or that any communication passed between them, until Marot fled to Geneva in 1542. The first translation made by Marot was Psalm 6, written and published in 1533 in 'Le Miroir de tres chretienne Princesse Marguerite.' By 1539 he had completed his first instalment of thirty psalms, but up to that time they circulated in manuscript only. They are all found in a psalter published at Antwerp in 1541, and their text is there the same as that published by Calvin. Douen thinks that the varied readings are due to Pierre Alexandre, editor of the Antwerp Psalter, but it seems equally if not more probable that they represent, largely or wholly, the original text of Marot's manuscripts, revised by him when he published the 'Trente Pseaulmes,' about the beginning of 1542. The tunes to Calvin's own translations are German, four by M. Greiter and one by W. Dachstein. Calvin returned to Geneva in Sept. 1541, and shortly afterwards, in Feb. 1542, a psalter (professedly printed at Rome by the command of the Pope^[5]) was published at Strasburg, containing, besides the psalms and other pieces of the collection of 1539, together with four psalms by other writers, the eighteen remaining psalms of those which Marot had translated up to that time (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 22, 24, 37, 38, 104, 113, and 115) and his Paternoster. To the Paternoster and to eight of the psalms (4, 6, 9, 22, 24, 38, 104, and 113) new melodies were added. On these two collections the first edition of the Genevan Psalter was based, and was published at Geneva in 1542. It contains the thirty psalms of Marot with his Pater and Credo (a different one from that in the Strasburg edition of 1539 which is in prose), the five psalms of Calvin, and his Song of Simeon and Decalogue. Of the tunes, seventeen (1, 2, 3, 15, 25, 36, 46, 91, 103, 104, 114, 130, 137, 138, 143, the Song of Simeon and the Paternoster) are taken from the preceding Psalters, but all except three (36, 103, and 137) are more or less modified; twenty-two tunes are new, thirteen of them (4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 19, 22, 24, 32, 38, 51, 113, and the Decalogue) are substituted for the former melodies, eight (5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 37, and 115) are set to the psalms left with music in the pseudo-Roman Psalter, and one is adapted to Marot's Credo. In Nov. 1542 Marot arrived at Geneva, and there translated nineteen other psalms (18, 23, 25, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 79, 86, 91, 101, 107, 110, 118, 128, and 138) and the Song of Simeon, which, with the thirty previously published, make up what are commonly spoken of as the 'Cinquante Pseaumes.' These, with Marot's Decalogue, Ave, and Graces before and after meat, all with music, were added to the psalter in a new edition published at the end of 1543.

In this edition the text of Marot's earlier psalms was corrected by the author, and the Calvin's Song of Simeon and five psalms were replaced by Marot's new versions of the same.

In 1544 Marot died at Turin, and the Psalter remained unfinished until the work was resumed by the publication in 1551 of thirty-four additional translations by Beza, which were united in the following year to the forty-nine by Marot already in use. In 1554 six more psalms appeared, soon followed by another, and the Psalter was completed in 1562.

The following lists show the order in which the psalms were published in successive editions of the Genevan Psalter:—

1542. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 24, 32, 37, 38, 51, 103, 104, 113, 114, 115, 130, 137, 143, the Pater, and Credo, by Marot. 25, 36, 46, 91, 138, Song of Simeon, and Decalogue, by Calvin.

1543. The seven versions by Calvin were omitted, and the following by Marot added—18, 23, 25, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 79, 86, 91, 101, 107, 110, 118, 128, 138, Song of Simeon, Decalogue, Ave, and Graces.

1551. 16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 73, 90, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134,^[6] all by Beza.

To these psalms the tunes were almost certainly adapted at the same time, but no copy of the Psalter containing them is known of a date anterior to 1554.

1554. The six appendix psalms of this year (52, 57, 63, 64, 65 and 111), and the additional one of 1555 (67) appeared without tunes.

In 1562 the psalter was completed by the addition of the remaining sixty psalms, proper tunes were assigned to thirty-eight of these as also to psalms 52 and 57, while the others, as well as the remaining appendix psalms of 1554–5 (63, 64, 65, 67 and 111) were sung to the melodies of other psalms.

The psalms thus added in 1562, with tunes, were—48, 49, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 74, 75, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 102, 105, 106, 112, 135, 136, 141, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150. Without tunes—53, 62, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 82, 95, 98, 100, 108, 109, 116, 117, 139, 140, 142, 144. Including, therefore, the Song of Simeon and the Decalogue, the Genevan Psalter contains in all 125 tunes, of which eighty-five were selected or adapted between 1542 and 1554, the rest in 1562.

The story which ascribes to Franc the editorship of the Genevan Psalter will be noticed in a separate article, but recent investigations in the archives of Geneva have clearly shown that the task of selecting and arranging the tunes was entrusted to Bourgeois, and an entry in the registers of the Council, dated July 28, 1552, which will be found quoted at length in the notice of Franc in this Appendix, distinctly states that Bourgeois had set to music the psalms of Beza, published the year before, and had arranged those already published in the earlier editions of the psalter.

A minute collation which M. Douen has made of these earlier editions enables us to see what Bourgeois did. In 1542 he adopted, with modifications, seventeen tunes from the Strasburg Psalters and added twenty-two new ones. In or before 1549 seventeen tunes were more or less altered and eight replaced by others. In 1551 four were altered and twelve new melodies substituted, some for earlier ones of Bourgeois himself. In several instances therefore the tune is of later date than the psalm.

These last changes were final and mark the time since which the tunes adopted before 1562 have remained unaltered. The old Strasburg tunes of 1539 which still survived were those to Psalms 1, 2, 15, 36, 91, 103, 104, 114, 130, 137 and 143, two of which (36 and 137) retained almost their primitive form, and 103 remained unaltered. M. Douen considers these Strasburg melodies to possess more of a German than a French character, and according to Riggenbach 36 and 91 are by Matthäus Greiter, a member of the choir of Strasburg Cathedral.

How far the other tunes adapted by Bourgeois are original it is impossible to determine. A few can be traced to a German origin, some are constructed out of fragments of earlier melody, while others are adapted from secular songs popular at the time. It is not improbable that every tune in the Genevan Psalter belongs to one or other of the above categories.^[7]

Bourgeois left Geneva in 1557, and undoubtedly had no connection with the Genevan Psalter after that time. The forty tunes of 1562 were added by another and a less skilful hand. In June 1561 an entry in the 'Comptes des recettes et depenses pour les pauvres' records the payment of ten florins to 'Maître Pierre' for having set the psalms to music. This person is conjectured by Becker to be Pierre Dubuisson, a singer who in 1565 was admitted gratuitously to the rights of citizenship at Geneva, but nothing certain is known on the subject.

It only remains to add that in 1550 Bourgeois published 'Le droict chemin de musique, composé par Loys Bourgeois auec la maniére de chanter les pseaumes par vsage ou par ruse, comme on cognoistra, au xxxiv,^[8] nouveau mis en chant, et aussi le cantique de Siméon. Genève 1550.' This treatise, in twelve chapters, is the first in which a proposal is made to abandon the method of the musical hand and to teach music by the employment of the solfeggio. An analysis of it will be found in Fétis, Biogr. des Musiciens, ii. 42. The last known work of Bourgeois shows him still employed in working on the Genevan melodies. It is entitled 'Quatre-vingt-trois Psalmes de Dauid en musique … à quatre, cinq, et six parties, tant a voix pareilles qu'autrement, etc. Paris 1561.'

For full details respecting Bourgeois and the history of the Genevan Psalter see the exhaustive work of Douen entitled 'Clément Marot et le Psautier Huguenot,' 2 vols. Paris, 1878-79. The following works may also be consulted:Bovet, 'Histoire du Psautier des églises reformées,' Neuchatel et Paris, 1872; G. Becker, 'La Musique en Suisse,' Geneve et Paris, 1874; Riggenbach, 'Der Kirchengesang in Basel'; and six articles in the Musical Times (June to Nov. 1881) by the present writer.

[ G. A. C. ]

1. Book I was reprinted in 1607, and was followed by the Second and Third Books in 1608. The latter books apparently had not been published in 1601.
2. In four parts.
3. Specimens of the psalms as harmonized by Bourgeois, Goudimel, Le Jeune. and others, are given by Douen in his work cited below.
4. Numbered L. after the numeration of the Vulgate.
5. Hence known as the pseudo-Roman Psalter.
6. The tune to this psalm is that known in England as the 'Old Hundredth.'
7. A composer of that day employed his talents on harmony rather than on melody, and used for his subjects any material that suited his purpose. A difference in style between sacred and secular music hardly existed, and 'composing' was often literally 'compounding.'
8. A misprint for xxiv.