Shout for joy

Few things better illustrate the wealth of the Psalms than the varied moods in which the hundredth may be sung. Psalms for Today/Songs from the Psalms have 14 versions in all, whole or in part, including James Quinn’s Sing, all creation, sing to God in gladness, and Chris Rolinson’s setting of the David Frost liturgical text O shout to the Lord in triumph, all the earth; see also the extract at 182. Not rivalling but complementing the ancient is the modern, contributed here by David Preston for this book and first published here. ‘Shout for joy’ is the NIV opening, and 3.5 owes something to Timothy Dudley-Smith’s 1991 version Let the earth acclaim him. David Preston’s CM text had appeared earlier in BP; Jim Sayers then requested a fresh version and this more lyrical treatment was suggested by Brian Hoare’s tune CHATSWORTH, composed for his own 1979 text in an original metre, Born in song. When permission was not granted for the use of the tune with this text, Noël Tredinnick obliged with JUBILATION, composed at St Paul’s Robert Adam St (his central London base) in 1999. After a ‘fanfare opening’, he says, it is ‘reminiscent of William Walton’s Coronation Te Deum’. As it happened, BH and NT served together on the editorial group for Sing Glory (1999).

b London 1939. d 2020. Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School, Kennington, London; Keble College Oxford (MA Mod Langs.) He worked as a French Teacher, including 11 years at Ahmadu Bello Univ, Nigeria, and gained a PhD on the French Christian poet Pierre Emmanuel (1916 84). A member of Carey Baptist Ch, Reading, for many years, he later moved to Alweston, nr Sherborne, Dorset. He compiled The Book of Praises (Carey Publications, Liverpool) in 1987, with versions of 71 Psalms; these include modified texts of Watts and a few other classic paraphrasers, but most are by contemporary writers including himself. 60 of his metrical Psalm versions are so far published, including one each in Sing Glory (2000), the Scottish Church Hymnary 4th Edn (2005) and Sing Praise (2010), and 3 in the 2004 edn of CH; also 10 tunes. His writing and composing has taken place in Leicester, Reading, Nigeria and his present home; he was a member of the editorial board throughout the preparation of Praise! and had a major share in the choice of music for the Psalm texts (1-150). His convictions about the Psalms, as expressed in the Introduction to BP, are that ‘There is nothing to compare with their blend of the subjective and the objective, the inner life and practical goodness, the knowledge of one’s own rebellious heart and the knowledge of God…Today’s general neglect of congregational Psalm singing is a symptom of the spiritual malaise of our churches. When the preaching of the Gospel has prospered, bringing into being churches vibrant with spiritual life, men and women have taken great delight in praising their Maker and Redeemer through these scriptural hymns’. 15 of his own, self-selected, feature as his share of ‘contemporary hymns’ in the 2009 Come Celebrate; he has also served as a meticulous proof-reader. Nos.1, 2A, 5*, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19A, 24A, 27A, 30B, 32*, 33*, 38, 40, 42, 43, 47, 51*, 52, 55, 57*, 64, 66, 74, 76, 77, 84, 90, 91A, 96*, 97, 99, 100B, 101, 114*, 120, 126, 132, 139, 142*, 143, 145A, 147*, 824*, 830*, 963*.