DONNE SECOURS

Composer: Louis Bourgeois

Louis Bourgeois (b. Paris, France, c. 1510; d. Paris, 1561). In both his early and later years Bourgeois wrote French songs to entertain the rich, but in the history of church music he is known especially for his contribution to the Genevan Psalter. Apparently moving to Geneva in 1541, the same year John Calvin returned to Geneva from Strasbourg, Bourgeois served as cantor and master of the choristers at both St. Pierre and St. Gervais, which is to say he was music director there under the pastoral leadership of Calvin. Bourgeois used the choristers to teach the new psalm tunes to the congregation. The extent of Bourgeois's involvement in the Genevan Psalter is a matter of scholar­ly debate. Calvin had published several partial psalter… Go to person page >

GENEVAN 12 first appeared in the 1551 Genevan Psalter and has thus been attributed to Louis Bourgeois (PHH 3), music editor for the 1551 edition. It is also known as DONNE SECOURS, the first two words of the French text for Psalm 12. The tune is included in many English-language hymnals because of its frequent association with the well-known 1954 text "Hope of the World" (524). Composed in the Dorian mode, this Genevan tune has four phrases and two main rhythmic patterns: one for lines 1 and 3 and another for lines 2 and 4. Howard Slenk (PHH 3) harmonized GENEVAN 12 in 1985 for the Psalter Hymnal.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook