TOULON

Composer: Louis Bourgeois

Loys "Louis" Bourgeois (French: [buʁʒwa]; c. 1510 – 1559) was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is most famous as one of the main compilers of Calvinist hymn tunes in the middle of the 16th century. One of the most famous melodies in all of Christendom, the Protestant doxology known as the Old 100th, is commonly attributed to him. See also in: Wikipedia  Go to person page >

TOULAN was originally an adaptation of the Genevan Psalter melody for Psalm 124 (124). In one melodic variant or another and with squared-off rhythms, the tune was used in English and Scottish psalters for various psalm texts. It was published in the United States in its four-line abridged form (called MONTAGUE) by Lowell Mason (PHH 96) and George Webb (PHH 559) in The National Psalmist (1848). That version, now called TOULON, is named quite arbitrarily after the French city. Sing the outer stanzas in unison and the middle stanzas in harmony. On the fifth stanza add the descant by Emily R. Brink (PHH 158). TOULON is a fine tune for accompaniment by brass quartet. It should be sung and played with power and dignity. --Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1987