The Geneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases of George Buchanan...

The Geneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases of GeorgeBuchanan (1579)Author(s): James PorterSource: Acta Musicologica, Vol. 81, Fasc. 2 (2009), pp. 229-254Published by: International Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23075160 .

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The Çeneva Connection: ]ean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm

Paraphrases of Qeorge Buchanan (1579)

James Porter

In

the autumn of 1579 the French composer ]ean Servin

(C1529-1609), domiciled in Çeneva, visited Scotland to

present his polyphonic settings of Qeorge Buchanan's psalm paraphrases to the 13-year old King James VI—Buchanan's pupil since the age of four—to whom the settings were

dedicated.1 Buchanan's paraphrases, with the Vulgate as his base text for versifying in

the style of Horace, were begun between 1547 and 1552 while Buchanan was confined

by the Inquisition in the monastery of San Bento in Portugal awaiting trial on the charge

of heresy.2 They were first published in their entirety by Henri Estienne in Paris in the

winter of 1565/6 with a dedication to Mary Queen of Scots, and were, in the words of Buchanan's biographer, I.D. McFarlane, 'quite unusually successful'3 Buchanan, whose

fame as a poet and dramatist in a European context was already well established, had

taught in Paris (Collège de Sainte-Barbe, from 1529) and Bordeaux (Collège de Çjuyenne,

1539)· His psalm paraphrases gave rise to musical settings not only by Servin, but also, a

See ς. Bell, "Notes on Some Music Set to Buchanan's Paraphrase of the Psalms", in Çeorge Buchanan:

Çlasgoui Quatercentenary Studies, 1906 (Qlasgow, 1907), p. 333-45; Ç. Munro, "Scottish Church Music

and Musicians, 1500-1700" (Ph.D. thesis, University of (jlasgow, 1999), vol. i, p. 36-37. Servin must

have arrived well before 11 November, on which date Parliament passed the important Act 'For

Instructioun of the Youth in Musik'; see Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. iii (1814), p. 124; also cited in Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. ii (Edinburgh, 1840), p. 19. There is no mention of Servin's visit in either J. Durkan, 'The French Connection in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth

Centuries', in Scotland and Europe, ed. T.C. Smout (Edinburgh, 1986), p. 19-44, or J-K. Cameron, 'Some Continental Visitors to Scotland in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries', in

Scotland and Europe, p. 45-61. See J. M. Aitken, The Trial of Çeorge Buchanan before the Inquisition (Edinburgh, 1939). I.D. McFarlane, Buchanan (London, 1981), p. 247. Twenty editions of the complete paraphrases by Buchanan were issued between 1565 and 1582, the year of his death. An early edition of 1556 con

tains paraphrases of Psalms 1-15,114,128,137 and 104 (in that order); these were reprinted in 1560. But the first complete edition was printed in Paris by H. and R. Stephanus in the winter of 1565/6; see McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 254-55. In this first edition the fastidious Buchanan made numerous

changes. Servin seems to have used one of the editions first issued by ]osiah Rihel in Strasbourg in 1566. See R. Cjreen, "The Text of Çeorge Buchanan's Psalm Paraphrases", The Bibliotheck 13/1

(1986), p. 3-29.

Acta Musicologica, LXXXI/2 (2009), p. 229-254.



James Porter - The Çeneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases...

little later, by Statius Olthoff, the Çerman cantor from Rostock whose simpler homophonic

arrangements were included in the many editions issued by Nathan Chytraeus from 1585

throughout the seventeenth century up to 1702.4

Buchanan's life is fairly well documented despite some gaps but we cannot at

present say the same of ]ean Servin, at least in respect of his early years. His place and

date of birth are not precisely known, although according to the document of entry into

Qeneva on 23 October 1572 he came from Blois.5 Others, including the historian Fétis, believed he came from Orléans because his first publication appeared there.6 He may have

been connected to the prominent magistrate Louis Servin (1555-1626), whose father (or, as another source states, uncle), Claude Servin, was a native of Blois and died in Qeneva.7 The records of Qeneva, at least, show that ]ean Servin died on 27 February 1609 aged

4- See ]. Durkan, Bibliography ofÇeorge Buchanan (Qlasgow, 1994). The subtitle of this bibliography is adapted from Buchanan's first biographer, Henri Estienne, whose exact phrase was 'poetarum sui

saeculi facile princeps'. The Rihel edition of 1566 has 'Scoto. Poetarum nostri saeculi facile principe'.A similar phrase was commonly used of Renaissance musicians such as Lassus, and a laudatory poem

by Dantonetus employs it in regard to Claude Le Jeune ('musicorum omnium facile princeps') in the

1598 edition of the composer's Dodecachorde; see A.H. Heider ed., Claude Le Jeune: Dodecachorde

(Madison, 1988), p. xii. In 1636, again, Mersenne wrote in praise of the composer Eustache du Caurroy (1549-1609), asserting that 'all the composers of France hold him to be their master'.

5. See P.-F. Deisendorf, Livre des habitants de Çenève (Çeneva, 1963) vol. 2, p. 45 'Jean Servin, de Blois.

musicien' (23 October 1572). Claude Servin, father (or uncle) of the noted magistrate and writer Louis Servin (1555-1626) was a native of Blois, a Huguenot who had been attached as contrôleur de gendarmerie to Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre and duc de Vendôme, in 1556; later, as a Protestant minister, he died in Qeneva. It is possible that Jean Servin was a member of this family; see

n.7 below. E. Droz, 'Simon Qoulart, éditeur de musique', Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, vol. xiv (1952), p. 273 suggests that after leaving Montargis in the general exodus from there in 1569

Jean Servin lived in Lyons, where Claude and Etienne Servin, father and son, were master printers before themselves fleeing to Qeneva; see also Archives d'État de Çenève: Notaire Ragueau, vol.11,

fos. 275-77· 6. See F.-J. Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens, 2d. ed.(Paris, 1865). 0. Douen, Clément Marot

et Le Psautier Huguenot, 2 vols. (Paris, 1878-9) cites this claim, as does Bell, 'Notes on Some Music',

p. 335, and, more recently, in Ç. Cahier and M. Çrandjean eds., Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs, vol. 7 (Çeneva, 1984), p. 174; and with some scepticism, Β. Qagnepain, "Réforme et humanisme dans

l'œuvre de Jean Servin", in Claude Le Jeune et son temps en France et dans les états de Savoie 1530 1600: Musique, littérature et histoire, ed. M.-T. Bouquet-Boyer & P. Boniffet (Bern, 1996), p. 129-36.

7. R. de Saint-Venant, ed., Dictionnaire historique...du Vendômois (Blois, c.1912; reprint: Vendôme,

1983), vol. 3, p. 379. La France Protestante, vol. 5 (Paris, 1858), p. 276 states that Claude was the

uncle of Louis Servin. Claude had a son, Etienne, and in 1569 the two were printers in Lyons; see

n. 5 above. Du Caunoy'sFantasies à III. Illl. V. et VI. parties (Paris, 1610), were dedicated posthu

mously by the publisher to Louis Servin; and the Rev James Balfour addressed a Latin poem to him

(QB-Lbl MS Add. fos. 25-251;). As a celebrated lawyer and author Louis became advocate general to

the parliament of Paris, and defended the constitution against the encroachment of the royal pre rogative. His Deux plaidouez pour Mre. Jean Hamilton, Escossois licencié en la Faculté de Theologie, was published in 1586. This refers to John Hamilton (d. 1609), the Catholic controversialist who left Scotland in 1573 and was elected rector of the University of Paris in 1584; see J.H. Burton, The Scot Abroad (Edinburgh, 1883), p. 190-93.

230



james Porter - The Qeneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases...

8o; we can assume that he was born in 1529 or early 1530.8 From the evidence of the

chanson Petit trouppeau [Little flock], he appears to have spent time as a refugee from the Wars of Religion at the Montargis residence of Renée, Duchess of Ferrara, a centre

of Protestant activity visited earlier by Calvin.9 Following the general exodus from there

on 26 September 1569 he may have passed the next few years in Lyons—where Claude

and Etienne Servin, father and son, were printers—finally fleeing the Massacre of St

Bartholomew's Day there that claimed the life of his fellow-Huguenot composer Claude

Qoudimel at the end of August, 157210

During the 1560s Lyons was a bustling, prosperous city where Protestants had

come to dominate the printing trade, either controlling or sharing the city's government. Between 1562 and 1566 no fewer than thirteen editions of the 150 psalms with the

melodies, probably composed by Louis Bourgeois and others at Qeneva, were printed at

Lyons. This wave of publication however came to an end in late 1567 when the city was

taken over by a Catholic administration that destroyed two churches and imprisoned

Protestant notaries. Protestant printers and booksellers had to transfer their activity to

Qeneva." After becoming resident in Çeneva in the autumn of 1572 Servin was likely attached professionally to one of the temples, perhaps that of St Pierre, where he later

became chantre (cantor), or at St Qervais, where Simon Qoulart was pastor. When he

journeyed to Scotland in the late summer or autumn of 1579, armed with a letter of

8. I am indebted to Pierre Fliickiger of the Archives d'Etat, Çeneva, for the date of Servin's death (let

ter of 13 January 200s). The Livre des Morts note that ]ean Servin, 'habitant, musicien, est mort à

Çenève, en sa demeure, le 27 février, 1609, à l'âge de 80 ans, d'une plurésie' (AEÇ E.C. morts 24). The parish records for Blois are unfortunately deficient for the years 1529-30 (communication from Anne-Cécile Tizon-Çerme, Archives Départementales, Loir-et-Cher, Blois, 10 February 2005).

9. See Encyclopédie Fasquelle (1961), vol. 3, p. 699. Renée (1510-74) was the daughter of Louis XII and

Anne of Brittany. See Droz, 'Simon Çoulart', p. 272; also Laurent Çuillo, Les éditions musicales de la

renaissance lyonnaise (Paris, 1991), p. 101. I thank Dr Çuillo for a copy of his important book. For

a recent summary of the Wars of Religion see J.P. Barbier-Mueller, La Parole et les Armes (Çeneva,

2006)[English version: Warriors of the Word: A History of the French Wars of Religion, 1562-1598], 10. P. Chaix, A. Dufour, ζ. Moeckli, Les livres imprimés à Qenève de 1550 a 1600 (Çeneva, 1966), p. 96.

Jean Servin may have been among the 460 Protestant refugees who left Montargis under treaty on 26 September 1569. As for his possible sojourn in Lyons, his name does not appear in the list

of about 250 Reformers living there (1568), nor in the list of musicians; see Droz, 'Simon Çoulart',

p. 274 (n. 1). A 'contrôleur Servin' is mentioned in the Lyons archives for 1562/1563; see Çeisendorf, Livre des habitants, vol. 2, p. 4-135. For a discussion of the psalters of Çoudimel, Le Jeune and Servin

(1565), see J-M.Noailly, 'Claude Le Jeune et le psautier des Églises Réformées', in Claude Le Jeune et son temps, p. 70-79.

11. Çuillo, Les éditions musicales, p. 94-96; F. Dobbins, 'Lyon: Commercial and Cultural Metropolis', in

Man & Music: The Renaissance, from the 1470s to the end of the iff" Century, ed. I. Fenlon (London,

1989), p. 197-215; T. Watson, 'Preaching, Printing, Psalm-Singing: the Making and Unmaking of the

Reformed Church in Lyon, 1550-1572', in Society and Culture: The Huguenot World 1559-1685, ed.

R.A. Mentzer and A.Spicer (Cambridge, 2002), p. 10-28. Also R. Mandrou, 'Les Protestants français

réfugiés à Çenève après la St. Barthélémy', Revue Suisse d'Histoire 16 (1966), p. 243-49.

231




recommendation from Théodore de Bèze, Calvin's successor in Çeneva, he would have

been about 50 years old.12

Domiciled in Qeneva, Servin published two books of chansons dated 16 and

18 August 1578. The first, Premier livre de chansons nouvelles à quatre, cinq, six et huit

parties, was dedicated to Çjuy-Paul de Coligny, Comte de Laval, the second to Henri de

la Tour, Viscomte de Turenne, Duc de Bouillon.13 The first book contains a six-voice epi

taph for Qoudimel, whom Servin terms 'mielleux' (sweet, well-spoken), in the form of a

sonnet set for six voices.14 The texts of the chansons are usually of a moral or spiritual

character, and several evoke the sadness of the refugee from the Wars of Religion. A third

book, Meslange de chansons nouvelles, dedicated to 'Monsieur de la Place, gentilhomme

françois' appeared in 1578, one year before the Buchanan psalm settings.15 It contains 'La

fricassée des cris de Paris', 'Les regrets de Didon', 'La Piafe guerriere', 'Les Badauds', 'Le

mordant mordu', a canon, 'Au plus envieux', and an acrostic on the composer's name.16

These show the influence of Sermisy (C1492-1562), ]anequin (C1485-1558), who was setting French translations of the psalms (1549) and chansons spirituelles (1556) towards the end of

12. The letter is quoted in T. de Bèze, Correspondance, vol. xi (Çeneva, 1998), 172-74: 'Qui tibi has litteras reddidit, quorsum ad vos proficiscatur, partim ex reipsa, partim ex ipsomet intelliges. Vixit

apud nos aliquot jam annis, artem suam musicam exercens, cujus peritus inter celebres músicos

habetur, arte tarnen potius Valens quam voce, homo sane pius et vitae innocentissimae, quem prae terea tibi et D. Buchanano nostro de meliore nota commendo, teque vehementer rogo, ut munus

ipsius verbis ornes, quantum poteris'. A letter of 16 March 1580 (from Bèze to Young) notes that Bèze received a letter from Young, with Servin as bearer; see Bèze, Correspondance, vol xxi, 72 (n.i). I am indebted to Alain Dufour, editor of the Bèze correspondence (letter of 21 January 2005) for these references. In 1562 Peter Young (1544-1628) had gone to Qeneva as a young man in care

of his uncle, Henry Scrymgeour (1505-72), professor of philosophy and civil law there. From 1573 Young and Bèze engaged in regular correspondence, the former having been tutor to King James, along with Buchanan, between 1572 and 1578. Buchanan and Bèze exchanged letters between 1572 and 1581 although they had been friendly since the 1540s; see McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 98,100.

13. Droz, 'Simon Qoulart', p. 271; Çagnepain, 'Réforme et humanisme', p. 130. For location of the books

of chansons, see RISM, Einzeldrucke vor 1800, vol. 8 (1980), p. 54 and vol. 14, p.83. Quy-Paul de

Coligny (1555-1586) and Henri de La Tour, Duc de Bouillon (1555-1623) were both associated with the Protestant cause.

14. The Épltaphe de Çoudimel opens with the tines: 'Sous le penible faix de ce poudreux tumbeaux/Du

mielleux Çoudimel la cendre se repose [...]'. The text plays on the 'taste of honey' (gout de miel),

making several references to the sweetness of his music. See also Droz, 'Simon Qoulart', p. 273,

Quillo, Les éditions musicales, p. 435.

15. This is possibly a dedication to Pierre de la Place, who had a prominent position at the royal court

but was assassinated on 25 August 1572 after his usual Sunday routine of domestic Reformed wor

ship; or perhaps to his son since the chansons were published six years after his death; see R.M.

Kingdon, Myths about the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres, 1572-1576 (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), p. 35-36.

16. These pieces are discussed by Cjagnepain, 'Reforme et humanisme', p. 130-35. The text of the acrostic, which gives a clue to Servin's character and was probably his own composition, is as follows: 'Serf j'ai esté non point en vain/Et le suis à tout homme honneste./Rude vilain & deshonneste/Voir je ne puis, ni l'inhumain./Je ne ferai donc jamais feste/Ni de lourdaut ni de vilain'. For the location of copies of the three books of chansons, see n. 13 above; also Quitto, Les éditions musicales, p. 455-56.

232



]ames Porter - The Çeneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases...

his life, and Çoudimel. Earlier, Servin was the first to make settings for three voices of all

150 psalms in French, with a dedication to Odet, Cardinal de Chatillon, Count of Beauvais.

Published in 1565 in Orléans, these were to be sung at home rather than in church, much as

Çoudimel's psalms were when they were first published in their complete form in 1564.17

Servin set the first 41 of Buchanan's psalm paraphrases, the psalter having

been from ancient times traditionally divided into five books (1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106,

107-150), probably along the lines of the Pentateuch. These 41 would have been the first

of five volumes of motets planned by him to cover the entire 150 psalms, although this is

admittedly conjectural.18 Some twenty years earlier the composer Philibert Jambe de Fer

had also set 41 psalms—mostly from the first of the five books—that had been translated

by Théodore de Bèze.19 In his dedication of the volume Servin was following the practice

of offering work to a prominent person (as with his Livres de chansons) with the hope

that preferment would follow. The connections between Edinburgh and Çeneva made

James VI a suitable candidate: at this time many in Europe were showing an interest in

the education of James as a Christian king, and James's pedagogical curriculum under

17- Les cent cinquante Pseaumes de David, composez à trois parties, dont l'une est le chant commun,

separez par cinquantaines, à la fin desquels y a prieres deuant et après le repas, imprimez en trois

volumes et mis en musique par I. Servyn, pour servir à la gloire de Dieu (Orléans, Loys Rabier, 1565).

Douen, Clément Marot et le psautier huguenot, p. 51 cites the work as bearing the date, 'avec privi

lege du 25 février 1565'. At the end of Servin's preface addressed to the cardinal he signs himself

'compositeur de musique'. A single, incomplete copy of this work survives in the Bibliothèque de

la Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français, Paris. Odet de Châtillon (1517-1571), brother of Admiral Çaspard de Coligny, sought refuge as a Huguenot in England in 1568. He became a Calvinist

in 1561, was declared a heretic by the Inquisition in 1562, Escaping to England in 1568, he was

poisoned by his valet de chambre, possibly at the instigation of Catherine de Medici, and is buried

in Canterbury Cathedral.

18. On the divisions of the psalter see A.F. Klrkpatrick, The Book of Psalms (Cambridge, 1901), p. i, ivii;

also C.A Briggs, E.Ç. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, 2 vols.

(Edinburgh, 1906). At the end of the part-books the legend, 'Finis Primae Partis Psalmorum', suggests

that Servin had settings of further divisions in mind. Qagnepain, 'Réforme et humanisme', p. 135

raises the question of why Servin chose to set the psalm paraphrases of Buchanan In particular.

Being aware of the connections between Scotland and Çeneva and knowing, no doubt, of Buchanan's

position as the royal tutor he may well have conceived the idea of setting the psalms as a means to

preferment from King James. His contemporaries, after all, were seeking similar positions. Between

the end of 1579 and January 1582, for example, Claude Le Jeune, had become 'maistre des enfans

de musicque' at the court of François, Duke of Anjou, brother of Henri III.

19. Psalmodie de quarante et un pseaumes royaux, fidèlement traduits en bien sonnants Vers François:

Enharmonisez en Musique variable, sur le commun subiet inuiolable obserué: Et coronnez en chef d'un

Royal Sonnet, inspirant Diuine affection. Par Maistre Philllbert Jambe-de-Fer, Natif de Chámpate, en

la Franche Comté de Bourgoigne (Lyon, 1559). See also Çjuillo, Les éditions musicales, p. 72-76, 271

72. Three part-books of this work (s, t, b) are in the Staats- und Universitäts-Bibliothek, Hamburg.

233




Buchanan was essentially that of the French Renaissance, geared to a monarch living at

a rather later period.20

Servin sought permission to publish the Buchanan psalm settings, and this was

granted by the Conseil de Çenève on io March 1579.2121 The settings, using an edition

first published by ]osiah Rihel in Strasbourg in 1566, were eventually issued in Çeneva in

August of 1579 by Charles Pesnot, a publisher from Lyons, and were most likely printed by

Jean Le Royer, a journeyman originally from Paris.22 The whole was supervised by the key

figure of Simon Çoulart, a pastor originally from Senlis who was much involved in music

publishing at the time; Çoulart was on friendly terms, for instance, with Servin's fellow

composer, Paschal L'Estocart, whose Sacrae Cantiones (with French and a few Latin texts) were published a few years later, in 1582.23 The imprint of the Buchanan psalm settings is

'Lugduni', that is, Lyons, not Çeneva, for Pesnot hoped thereby to sell the work through the book-fairs held there.24 The five part-books—superius, contratenor, tenor and bassus,

with the quinta pars book usually containing the additional secundus parts for psalms in

more than four voices—bear the title, Psalmi Davidis a Ç. Buchanano versibus expressi, nunc primum modulis ////, V, VI, VII et Vili vocum, a I. Servino decantati, and carry a Latin

preface addressed by Servin to 'Serenissimo Scotorum Regi, lacobo Sexto':

Almighty Qod of His infinite goodness having called me in

my youthful days to the true knowledge of His Name, I early

20. McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 445-50. As a poet himself, James came under the particular influence of the Huguenot poet, Du Bartas, whose poems James preferred to those of the Pléiade-, see J. Craigie, The Poems of James VI of Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1955), voi.i, p. xvii-xxiii. The edition of Du Bartas's Oeuvres (1611) had Simon Çoulart as commentator. Bèze, addressing his famous Icones

(1580) to James, includes an engraving of the young king, calling him' head of a most Protestant

nation, with manifest sincerity the prayer is offered that Çod would bring to perfection his nascent

faculties for the good of his own subjects and of many nations'. There are also references to James's tutors, 'Domino Çeorgio Buchanano' and Domino Petro Junio' (Peter Young). Icones was translated into French by Simon Çoulart and issued the following year with the title, Les vrais portraits des hommes illustrés (1581; repr. Çeneva,ig86). On the views of Buchanan and Huguenot writers such as Philippe du Plessls-Mornay (Vindiciae contra tyrannos) on kingship, see Jenny Wormald, Court,

Kirk, and Community: Scotland 1470-1625 (Edinburgh, 1981), p. 146-48. 21. Çuillo, Les éditions musicales, p. 101.

22. For the editions of Rihel, see n. 3 above. Le Royer, who printed the Çuillaume Boni's Sonets chrestiens

mis en musique à quatre parties (Çeneva, 1578), may have been the printer for Simon Çoulart's edi tion of Lassus, Thrésor de musique... contenant ses chansons à quatre, cinq et six parties (Çeneva, 1576; reprinted 1582, 1594). In February 1576 he sought permission to print 'quelques chansons

spirituelles sur la musique d'Orlande' and 'les Psaumes de la musique de Çodinel [sic] en quatre et

six parties' (these last were published in 1580); see Quillo, Les éditions musicales, p. 100-1.

23. C.S. Adams, 'Simon Çoulart (1543-1628), Editor of Music, Scholar and Moralist', in Studies in

Musicology in Honor of Otto E. Albrecht, ed. J.W. Hill (Kassel, 1980), p. 125-41; R. Freedman, The

Chansons of Orlando di Lasso and Their Protestant Listeners: Music, Piety and Print in Sixteenth

Century France (Rochester, 2000), p. 1-18.

24. Droz, 'Simon Çoulart', p. 274.

234




made a resolution...that if ever any gift of genius should become mine, I should con

secrate it to the advancement of His glory...

For since some knowledge of Music has been granted to me, I

have always considered it my duty to devote it to that end. And

this is sufficiently proved by both the Psalms and the sacred

songs which...have been published by me.25

He then refers to the splendour and elegance of Buchanan's psalms that

inspired him to set them to music.

And so, his psalm-settings having been printed in the summer of 1579, Servin

made ready for the journey to Scotland. In his letter of recommendation dated 26 August

1579 to Peter Young (King James's other tutor besides Buchanan), Bèze describes Servin as

'having lived with us for some years now, practising his musical art...a man of pious and

wholly innocent character'.26 Servin duly arrived in Scotland with his part-books, possibly

in late September, and presented them to the king. The account-book of the Lord High

Treasurer for early November 1579 has the entry:

Item be the kingis majesteis precept to Maister Servine,

musltien, Frencheman, in recompans of certane buikis of

musik maid be him and dedicated to the Kingis majestie

ane hundreth crownis of gold, as the said precept with his

acquittance schewin upoun compt beiris ij c li.

A little later that month another relevant entry appears, indicating a lesser

amount, perhaps to meet Servin's expenses and for his return journey.27

Item be the Kingis speciali command to Maister Servin,

musitian, Frencheman 11 li.

One can speculate as to how James's chronically empty coffers were able to

supply more than £200 in gold.28 The funds would almost certainly have been drawn from

25- 'Cum iam inde a teneris annis Deus Opt. Mai. pro sua infinita bonitate me ad veram sui nominis

cognitionem vocasset, hoc statim in animum induxi meum, & tanquam votum nuncupavi, ut si

quid unquam ingenii contigisset, iliud celebrandae ipsius gloriae consecrarem. Quod etiam pro meo modulo reipsa praestare conatus sum. Concessam enim aliquam artis Musicae notitiam eo semper

referendam esse duxi, ut Deus inter alia infinita erga genus humanum beneficia a huius quoque nec

sane postremi, author agnosceretur. Quod satis testatum faciunt cum psalmi, tum etiam cantiones

sacrae diversis temporibus iam olim a me in lucem editae'. Passage translated in Bell, 'Notes on Some

Music', p. 336-37. The verso of the title page has a liminary Latin poem by Corneille-Bonaventure

Bertram (1531-94), a refugee in Çjeneva from 1562 who taught Hebrew and theology there; see L.C.

]ones, Simon Çoulart, 1543-1628: Étude Biographique et Bibliographique (Çeneva, Paris, 1917), p. 6-7. In the bassus part-book the final line of the poem and the signature are uncorrected.

26. T. de Bèze, Correspondance, vol. xx, p. 172-73. See n. 12.

27. Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, ed. T. Dickson et al., 13 vols. (Edinburgh, 1877-1978), vol. xili

ed. C.T. Mdnnes (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 291-92. 28. ]. Çoodare, 'James Vl's English Subsidy', in The Reign of James VI, ed. J. Çoodare and M. Lynch (East

Linton, 2000), p. 110-25. ]ames had an annuity of £4,000 Scots from his cousin Queen Elizabeth;

but it is likely that the payment to Servin in gold came directly from d'Aubigny's funds.

235




the 40,000 gold pieces brought to Scotland by Esmé Stuart (C1542-83), the king's French

cousin since ultimately, these came from 'nowhere but the Pope, the King of France,

and the Çuisians, and for no other reason than to corrupt the nobility' and to influence

James.29 It appears probable, and at the same time ironic, that some of this Catholic gold was used to pay a Huguenot composer.

Esmé had arrived from Dieppe at Edinburgh's port of Leith on 8 September

1579. One week later he proceeded to the court at Stirling Castle with an entourage calculated to win over the young king to the policy of the Quise faction in France, which

was plotting to free Mary, ]ames's mother, and restore Catholic influence.30 The impact

of the glamorous Esmé on a 13-year-old ]ames, starved of affection since childhood, is

well known. But by the middle of the following year Esmé, created Earl and then Duke

of Lennox by James, was formally to embrace Protestantism.31

As for Servin, it is uncertain precisely when he arrived in Scotland; for although his Buchanan settings were published on 1 August he may have had to delay his departure

from Qeneva for several weeks until specially bound presentation copies of his psalms were ready. In any case he had to wait for the letter of recommendation from Bèze, which

is dated 26 August. If he left soon after this, allowing around two weeks for the journey, it may have been in mid- to late September when he reached Scotland.

If we assume this as a likely time frame Servin would have had to travel to

Stirling Castle, for James did not leave there for Edinburgh to assume his personal rule

at Holyrood until 29 September. But Servin may not have arrived until October, or waited

until he was granted an audience in Edinburgh, and perhaps this is more likely because

the payment for his music books is noted at the beginning of November. The young king, while doubtless appreciating the industry and skill of the composer who had dedicated this

work to him, may well have felt ambivalent toward texts written by his erstwhile severe

and demanding preceptor. Temperamentally opposed as he was to Buchanan's character,

29- D. Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson, 8 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842-49, vol. iii, p.456, 460-61.

30. See D. Moyses, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1755), p. 38; also The Diary of James Melville, 1556-1601 (Edinburgh, 1839), p. 59η, which recounts how the minister Nicol Dalgleish,

travelling in Berry in the summer of 1579, learned in Bourges of the Quisian intentions from the

mother ('a godly woman') of M. Mombirneau, a companion of Esmé Stuart on his Scottish visit.

Dalgleish lost no time in relaying this intelligence to the authorities in Edinburgh. A secret letter of 15 May 1579 from the Bishop of Ross in Paris to Cardinal de Como in Rome tells of the plan for Esmé

Stuart to 'settle the affairs of Scotland'; see also W. Forbes-Leith, Narratives of Scottish Catholics

under Mary Stuart and James VI (Edinburgh, 1885), p. 134-36. Queen Elizabeth was fully aware of these purposes: see also Calderwood, History, vol. iii, p. 457, 488-95, where the female informant of Dalgleish is believed to be d'Aubigny's mother (a pious Catholic).

31. See Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, AD 1578-1585, ed. D. Masson, vol. iii (Edinburgh, 1880),

p. 328; Calderwood, History, vol. iii, p. 477; also Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1579-1580, vol. xiv, ed. A.J. Butler (London, 1904), p. 50-51,111,128,143,146.

236



James Porter - The Qeneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases...

beliefs and methods, james nevertheless retained an admiration for him as a poet long

after his tutor's death in 1582.32

On the surface, then, the music books may have appeared a harmless cultural

gift that did not compromise the political and religious differences of the time. Although

concrete evidence of the king's reaction is lacking, someone among James's advisers at

court may well have pointed to the importance of this music, even though the members

of James's Chapel Royal at the time—the most obvious musical voices on hand—would

have been hard put to it to sing Servin's settings. Because the work was polyphonic and to

Latin texts it may have flagged up a danger signal for presbyterian divines who advocated

strict adherence to Calvin's precepts regarding psalms and the avoidance of elaborate

music in setting them. In any case, these psalm-settings were not intended for perform

ance in a liturgical setting but rather as moral and spiritual diversion for the royal court

and educated music-lovers.

Did Buchanan himself meet Servin? The composer would surely have wanted to

greet the ageing poet who inspired these elaborate settings, even if he had not met him

earlier in France, although there is no evidence of either encounter. Buchanan's name

was included among the twenty-seven members of the Privy Council when Parliament

rose on 11 November, although his active participation appears to cease from that date.33

He was therefore around, though ailing and busy finishing his History of Scotland, when

Servin arrived. Again, we can wonder whether Servin was introduced to composers and

musicians moving in court circles, such as the brothers Hudson, James Lauder, or Andrew

Blackhatl, minister at Musselburgh and one of the many musicians patronised by the Earl

of Morton, Regent from 1572 to 1578?34 Morton's nemesis Esmé Stuart, who contrived his

downfall and execution, must have known of the music books given the intimate relation

ship he enjoyed with the king from their first meeting just two months earlier.3S Indeed,

he may have approved of them since psalms in Latin, set in a polyphonic style by a French

composer (albeit a Huguenot), may have appealed to his sense of cultural affinity. Or, he

may simply have decided not to play his Quisian hand so early.

Yet Esmé could hardly fail to notice that Servin, in honouring a Protestant

prince with the gift of psalm settings by Buchanan, could also be acting as an intermedi

ary between the Reformers in Edinburgh and those in Çeneva. It is quite likely that Bèze,

32. A. Çrant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh, 2 vols. (London, 1884), vol. i, p. 174.

33. McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 468.

34. D.]. Ross, Musick Fyne: Robert Carver and the Art of Music in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh

1993), P- 94-95: also ]. Reid-Baxter, "']udge and Revenge My Cause": the Earl of Morton, Andro

Blackhall, Robert Sempill and the Fall of the House of Hamilton in 1579', in Older Scots Literature,

ed. S. Mapstone (Edinburgh, 2005), p. 467-92. For background to this period, see q. R. Hewitt,

Scotland Under Morton 1572-1580 (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 7if.

35. See Calendar of State Papers, AD 1574-1581, vol. v, ed. W. K. Boyd (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 355*56.

237




realizing the political significance of Servin's work, arranged financing of the journey and encouraged him to gather intelligence while in Edinburgh. I am not suggesting that

Servin's secondary role was that of a deliberate spy. But from his experience in France

Servin was well aware of the state of affairs and could thus return to Qeneva with news

of what was happening in Scotland. Sizing up his personal situation he probably saw

that, Esmé Stuart being in royal favour, his chances of preferment were small. No doubt

he also saw the poor condition of musical pedagogy and practice, for the Chapel Royat and sang schules were at that time in desperate need of attention. In Qeneva he may have imagined that his psalms could be performed by the Chapel Royal, for there were

sufficient singers, nominally at least, attached to it. But the fortunes of the Chapel were

at a low ebb in the 1570s.36

On his visit to Edinburgh, with which Çeneva had close links through John Knox, Christopher Çoodman, Henry Scrimgeour, Andrew Melville, and Buchanan himself

amongst others, Servin would have found that his music was regarded as too elaborate

for performance at court because of the austere musical climate that followed the

Reformation. Although the Regent, Lord James Stewart, Thomas Wode the vicar of St

Andrews (whose part-books are a valuable source for the period) and the composers

Andrew Blackhall and David Peebles combined to produce polyphonic settings of sacred

texts for non-liturgical purposes, the kirk was increasingly committed to strict observance

of Calvin's view of music in the context of worship: 'all together in a plain tune' i.e. sing

ing psalms in unison. In 1576, however, the ageing David Peebles, a former Augustinian canon, made a four-voice setting of Psalm III in Latin at the request of Lord James's uncle, Robert Stewart, Protestant Bishop of Caithness, for some purpose as yet unknown.

This setting shows that Peebles was well acquainted with musical developments on the

Continent, especially in France. Judging from his two surviving Latin motets Peebles, like Servin, may have considered plain four-part homophony beneath his dignity, for he was coerced into harmonizing all 105 of the 'proper tunes' in the Scottish metrical

psalter of 1564.37

Still, Servin's work may well have been a prime factor in stimulating James and

his musical advisers, that same month of November 1579, to pass the important Act of

'tymous remeid' ('For instruction of the youth in musik and singing'), by which the burgh

sang schules and the Chapel Royal were to be revitalised.38 It may also have indirectly

36. Munro, 'Scottish Church Music', p. 36; C. Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1882), p. Ixxv-lxxviii, xcv-xcvii.

37. See Ross, Musick Fyne, p. 87-88.

38. See n. 1 above. 'For Instruction of the youth in the art of musick and singing quhilk is almaist decayit and sail shortly decay without tymous remeid be providit', /lets of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. Iii

(Edinburgh, 1814), p. 174. On the importance of this Act see Ross, Musickfyne, p. 96-97; also Munro, 'Scottish Church Music', p. 295-97.

238




brought about the treatise known as The Art of Music collectif out of all Ancient Doctouris

of Music.39 If, as has been suggested, this work was compiled by Andrew Buchan, master

of St Çjiles's Sang Schule and precentor there, it was probably following his appoint

ment, confirmed on 27 November 1579, to a position left vacant by the death of Edward

Henderson on 15 August 1579.40 Buchan had been a canon of the Chapel Royal since at

least 1551 and may have been in charge of the musical arrangements for ]ames's entry

into Edinburgh in October 1579. He was thus well positioned for this advancement, which

netted him 20 merks for his duties and a further 20 merks as rent of the Sang Schule.41

We might also ask whether Servin's presentation part-books were given to Buchan or

one of his colleagues for the purpose of performance, for they do not appear in the list

of books in King James's library made by Peter Young.42

Thus in the end Servin, his hopes of preferment dashed, left Edinburgh, where

the plague had attacked the town in October, and disappears from the Scottish records.43

But not from the continental records. He went back to Qeneva, as we learn from a letter of

Calvin's former secretary, Charles de Jonvilliers, to Rudolf Qualther, deacon of St Peter's

in Zurich, dated 25 January 1580, in which Servin is described as 'musicus insignis' lately

returned 'ex Scotia et Anglia*4 Bitterly disappointed at the futility of his journey, Servin

39- Ross, Musick Fyne, p. 94-97; further, ]. D. Maynard, 'An Anonymous Scottish Treatise on Music from

the Sixteenth Century, British Museum, Additional Manuscript 4911', Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana

University, 1961.

40. Munro, 'Scottish Church Music', p. 161-62.

41. ].D. Marwick ed., Extractsfrom the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, A.D. 1573-1589 (Edinburghi882),

p. 126, 128.

42. See 'The Library of Mary, Queen of Scots and of King James the Sixth', Miscellany of The Maltland

Club, vol. i (Edinburgh, 1840), p. 1-23; also Ç.F. Warner, 'The Library of James VI, 1573-1583 from a

Manuscript in the Hand of Peter Young', Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Edinburgh, 1893),

p. ix-lxxv. Edward Kellie, master of the Chapel Royal in 1631, mentions in a letter to Charles I that

its repertory included 'all sorts of English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Latin, Italian, and old Scotch

music, vocal and instrumental'. Servin's settings may have been part of this library; see H.Ç. Farmer,

A History of Music in Scotland (London, 1947), p. 182; Ross, Musick Fyne, p. 167.

43. See Accounts, vol. xiii, p. 292; cf. Calendar of State Papers Relating to Mary, Queen of Scots 1547

1603, vol. 5 (A.D. 1574-1581), ed. W.K. Boyd (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 358.

44. T. de Bèze, Correspondance, vol. xx, p. 172-73. Buchanan had also corresponded with Qualther; see

H. Robinson ed., The Zurich Letters, 1558-1602, 2d series (Cambridge, 1845), p. 294-95, 302-3, 310,

312-13 (Latin text in the second part, 180-81,185-86,191-92,192-93 respectively). Although McFarlane

(.Buchanan, p. 263) specifies Servin as the composer for the 1579 Psalmi Davidis, he fails to connect him

to the musician recommended by de Bèze to Peter Young (p. 458). Because of the nature of Servin's

journey in a time of conflict we may never know the details of his route or its precise dates. The safest

route for Servin's journey from Qeneva would have been along the Rhine from Basle, Strasbourg and

Dordrecht, and from there by ship to Leith, although he may have chosen the more direct route from

a Channel port such as Dieppe or Dunkirk. Another possibility would have been from La Rochelle,

sailing to Dumbarton, but this would have involved a difficult journey across France. His departure

from Cjeneva took place between the Peace of Bergerac (17 September 1577) and the Treaty of Fleix

(26 November 1580) during a period of uneasy relations between the opposing forces in the Wars of

Religion. In his letter describing Servin's excursion jonvilliers appears to suggest an overland journey,

though whether this refers to travel in one direction is obscure; on his return journey Servin may simply

239




wrote no more music, at least under his own name. We must presume that he was active

at St Pierre in Qeneva until 4 April 1600, when he was finally, after some persuasion,

appointed to oversee the music in the church itself and the College or school attached

to it. One of his predecessors in the position had been Loys Bourgeois.115 From the beginning Servin was strictly enjoined by the Compagnie des Pasteurs

to be punctilious in teaching the young boys the psalms to be sung in church.46 Despite his efforts the pupils appear to have been unruly, and he relinquished the post just two

years later, on 19 March 1602, but remained to serve there as chantre until 1604.47 This

was, after all, a time of severe political tension. In 1602 the Duke of Savoy attacked

Qeneva, and order and discipline were no doubt important to the authorities there.48

have taken a ship from Leith that put in to an English port on its way to the continent. See Calendar of State Papers, vol. xiii, p. 309, which relates how Keerey, interpreter and secretary to d'Aubigny [Esmé

Stuart], was to be sent from Scotland about their secret affairs, sailing on a little ship of 'Lythe' [Leith] called the Huguenot. Servin may have used a vessel of this kind for his journey. There is no sign of his name in either the 'Returns of Aliens dwelling in the city and suburbs of London from the reign of

Henry VIII, to that of James Γ, nor in the 'Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens

in England, 1509-1603'.Neither does his name appear in any of the publications of the Huguenot

Society of Çreat Britain and Ireland. This suggests a direct return to France, perhaps again by sea as

suggested above. An alternative point of departure—if by chance he decided to visit relatives in France

by travelling overland through England—might have been through a coastal port with French-speaking communities such as Rye or Southampton. In October 1579, passports were issued at Çreenwich for Scots merchants sailing from the Sussex port of Rye to France (usually Dieppe or Dunkirk according to Rye Shipping Records 1566-1590 [Lewes, n.d.]); see Acts of the Privy Council of England, New Series, vol. xi, ed. ]. R. Dasent (London, 1895), p. 278, 281. See further Andrew Spicer, The French-Speaking

Reformed Community and their Church in Southampton, 1567-C1620 (Stroud, 1997). 45. Registres de la Compagnie des Pasteurs de Çenève, vol. vili, ed. Q.Cahier and M. Campagnolo (Çeneva,

1986), p. 15; O. Labarthe, 'Les chantres du temple de Saint-Pierre' in La Musique à Saint-Pierre, ed. M-T. Bouquet-Boyer et al. (Çeneva, 1984), p.105-6. Bourgeois (C.1510-C.1560) quit his post at St. Pierre

in 1552. The table printed for finding the psalms, according to the order in which they were sung in

the church of Çeneva, found its final form in the 1562 edition of the Psalter whereby the church, over

the course of six months, sang through the complete Psalter in the three weekly services.

46. On 16 January 1537 a document, presumably written by Calvin, was adopted by the Little Council

under the title 'Articles Concerning the Organisation of the Church and of Worship at Çeneva'. Included in it was the recommendation that congregations learn the psalms from the singing of children: 'La manière de procéder qui nous a semblé bonne est, si quelque enfans, auxquels on

avait d'abord appris un chant modeste et ecclésiastique chantent à voix haute et distincte, le peuple écoutant en toute attention et suivant de Coeur ce qui est chanté de bouche jusqu'à ce que petit à petit, chacun s'accoutume à chanter ensemble'. See Théodore Çérold, 'Protestant Music on the

Continent', New Oxford History of Music, vol. iv (London, 1968), p. 440; John T. McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (London, 1957), p. 155-58.

47. The whole matter of Servin's appointment as chantre (cantor) or maitre de chant is recorded in

Registres, vol. viii, p. 15, 24, 29, 74, 83, 117, 135,154, 157,165; see also Labarthe, 'Les chantres',

p. 106-7.

48. On the night of 12 December 1602 the Duke of Savoy, urged on by Pope Clement VIII and supported by arms and money from Philip III of Spain, attacked Çeneva with 2000 paid soldiers—Italian, Savoyard, and French—but was repulsed. This famous 'escalade' failed, and by the Peace of St Julien (21 July 1603) the Duke recognized an independent Çeneva; see P-F. Deisendorf, L'Escalade de Çenève, 1602:

Histoire et Tradition (Çeneva,1952). Çoulart's account is in Deux Relations de L'Escalade suivies d'une Lettre de Simon Çoulart (Çeneva, 1880).

240




Besides, there were similar occasions of disorder in Lausanne's equivalent college at the

same time.49

At one point, not having given satisfaction to the Compagnie, Servin announced

his intention of leaving Çeneva 'pour quelque affaire qu'il a en France' and was amicably

permitted to leave, but returned six months later.50 Servin's personal life had not been

a particularly happy one. His first wife, Marie Qoulard, had died on 16 September 1584,

aged about 68, an age some ten years older than that of her husband. He then married

Catherine, widow of Etienne Anastaze, on 31 December 1584 in St Pierre, but their child

was stillborn and Catherine herself passed away the following year, on 29 November 1585,

aged about 46.51 Jean Servin married for the third time, a woman again named Marie

Vaular, on 20 March 1586, and the child of this marriage, Louis, born in 1587, died at the

age of nine in 1596, and a daughter, Marie, died on 27 December i592.52 Servin himself

passed away on 27 February 1609 as a result of pleurisy, aged 8o.53

The Psalmi Davidis: the partbooks

The only two complete sets of the Psalmi Davidis currently known—that is,

all five part-books—are in the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the Bavarian State

Library, Munich.54 Single part-books are held by the university libraries of St Andrews

(tenor), Oxford (superius, bassus), and Cambridge (bassus), as well as the National Library

of Scotland (superius). The part-books are oblong octavo size (21.5 χ 16.25 cm.) with limp

vellum bindings, title page with woodcut illustration, and the music in diamond notation

set in movable type. Notably, the bassus and superius copies in the British Library and

the tenor part-book in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York—issued in the same oblong

49· R· Weeda, Le Psautier de Calvin: l'histoire d'un livre populaire au xvf siede (1551-1598), (Turnhout,

2002), p. 34.

50. Registres, vol. viii (1600-1603), Ρ- 135·

51. No manuscripts of Servin appear to have survived in Qeneva, either in Archives d'État (Pierre

Fiückiger, letter of 19 April 2005) or the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire (Paule Hochuli, let

ter of 24 May 2005). While Servin's own testament—if he wrote one—has not survived, that of his

second wife, Catherine, is dated 6 September 1585 (Archives d'État, Notaire ]ean Jovenon, vol. 5,

fol. 572 f.). I thank Sandra Coram-Mekkey, Archives d'État (letter of 25 November 2005).

52. Droz, 'Simon Çoulart', p. 274.

53. See n. 8.

54. The full set of part-books in Trinity College Dublin, and the single part-book in St Andrews University

Library are so far not recorded even in the supplementary volume of Répertoire International des

Sources Musicales [RISM](Munich, 1999). The set in the State Library in Munich stems from the

Bavarian electoral court and is part of the collection of the founders of the Library. It contains

two ex libris, one from the original electoral library, and other, which replaced it, is still visible; see

F. Dressler, Die Exlibris der Bayerischen Hof- und Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden, 1972), p. 57.1 acknowl

edge a helpful communication in this regard (21 ]une 2005) from Sabine Kurth, Music Department,

Bavarian State Library.

241



]ames Porter - The Qeneva Connection: Jean Servin's Settings of the Latin Psalm Paraphrases...

octavo size and with the same paper—are bound in red-brown calf, are gold-tooled and

painted and bear the royal arms of Scotland on the covers.55

These three part-books are significant because they appear to be extant copies

of the original set of five presented to King ]ames by ]ean Servin in 1579.56 The British

Library bassus part (K.8.C.25) is fairly defective, with about half of its leaves missing.57 It

was apparently owned at one time by Alexander Boswell, whose signature and the date

'1758' appear on the flyleaf. The bookplate of Thomas Ruddiman is also present. Whereas

in the complete print run the initials of each psalm are historiated, the redlining of the

page borders (probably by hand) is confined to the presentation set only. The initial of Psalm I in the bassus part-book is partially coloured, but this appears to be the work of a later owner. The paper and binding structure of the superius part in the British Library

(Davis 433) is fragile. Nevertheless the contents seem complete apart from the preface, A ii, which is missing (two photocopies sheets are substituted). Various signatures are

present, as are the bookplates of Henry Davis and H.C.M.Porter. Finally, the three part

55· The paper type appears to conform to the numbers between 10.607 and 10.620 in Briquet: see

C.-M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire Historique des Marques du Papier, Dès leurs apparition vers

1282 jusqu'en 1600 (facs. of 1907 edition, ed. Alian Stevenson, vol. ii [Amsterdam, 1968]), p.543. The

most likely source is 10.615 [Cjeneva, 1567], 10.616 [Qeneva, 1547], or 10.617 [Qeneva, 1575]. In all

parts some sheets have no visible mark; others, marked losange, appear centrally on the sheet.

56. A full set of five part-books was most likely bound in this way. A sale of books owned by Col. H.C.M. Porter was held at Christie's on 28 November i960, in which two volumes (superius, tenor) were

advertised. The London dealer Quaritch bought both copies (for £800) on behalf of two noted col

lectors of bindings, Major ].R. Abbey (1896-1969) and Henry Davis. The superius part is now in the

Henry Davis Qift in the British Library (Davis 433). The tenor volume that belonged to Major Abbey was sold at Sotheby's (23 June 1965, lot 613) and was later lot 107 of the Raphaël Esmerian sale in Paris (6 June 1972). From that sale it was donated, with funds from Julia P. Wightman (d. 1995), to the Pierpont Morgan Library. The whereabouts of the remaining two books (contratenor, quinta pars) is unknown. I acknowledge a helpful communication from Simon Beattie of Quaritch's (21 November 2005). See Christie's Illustrated Catalogue of Important Books and Manuscripts, Monday, November 28, i960 (lot 93), p. 41; M. M. Foot, The Henry Davis Çift: A Collection of Bookbindings, vol. 1 (London, 1978), ρ 2θ8; Η. M. Nixon, Sixteenth-Century Qold-Tooled Bookbindings in the Pierpont

Morgan Library (New York, 1971), p. 210: 'There can be no doubt that the calf bindings, with their

fine large block of the Scottish royal arms having the tressure painted black, also come from Lyon... The handsome winged sphinxes, painted black, which are blocked in the angles, are found on a

well-known Lyonese sunk panel binding illustrated by Ç.D. Hobson in plate LXXXII of Les Trésors des

Bibliothèques de France'. Paul Needham, however, in Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings, 400-1600 (New York and London, 1969), p.276-78 argues persuasively for a Çenevan workshop as the origin of the bindings.

57. See Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1580 (London, 1986), vol. 51, p. 421. The

copy is 'wanting fol. sig. Β i, iv; C iii, iv; D iii; E iti, iv; F iii, iv; Q iii, iv; H i-iii; I i; L i-iii; M iii, iv; Ρ i, ili, iv; Q i, iv; R i, iv; S i, ii, iv; Τ i, iv; X i, il, iv; Y i; Bb iii; and all after Bb iv. Fol. F iii, Ν ii and Ζ ii are mutilated'. In fact it is Ζ that is mutilated, not Ζ ii.

242




books were most likely bound by the King's Binder (to Henri III), Nicolas or Clovis Eve,

binders to the French kings from 1578 to 1634.58

The single tenor copy in the Pierpont Morgan Library (PML 062835), is described

in a French catalogue source.59 It lacks folios Κ iii, Κ iv, L i, L ii and one or two folios

between Dd iv and the final page containing the index. Two part-books (superius, bassus)

are held by the Bodleian Library (Buchanan collection f. 50 and Mus.55.d.94). The former

part, which has been re-bound in red-gold calf, is decorated with asterisks around the

border of the covers and bears the inscription on the spine, 'Buchanan cum musica,

superius'. It also carries the signature, 'Alxr Boswel Edinb. 1758' on the flyleaf.60 Thus

two of these part-books, one at Oxford and the other in the British Library, appear to

have belonged to the judge, Lord Auchinleck (1706-82), father of the writer ]ames Boswell

(1740-95). The full set of vellum-bound part-books in Munich (Mus. pr. 194) has 'Servinus'

written on the flyleaf and is bound with other works: the first book of: Modulationum

58. See F. Dobbins, 'The Lute Airs of Charles Tessier', Lute Society Journal xx (1978), p. 23-42; here, p. 28. See also Foot, The Henry Davis Qifi, p. 208. The winged sphinxes that decorate these bindings

apparently occur on Evangeliae (Rome, 1591) with the arms of the Basset family of Lyons (p. 214). I am grateful to Philippa Marks, British Library, for drawing my attention to details of this part-book, and to Amelie Roper, curator, Music Collections of the Library, for confirming the relative complete ness of the contents, which has but one leaf missing, the preface (A ii; communication of 1/12/05). Previous owners, apart from Davis and Porter, appear to have been 'Johannes Chinnall' (signature on title page), (?)'Bengeman de Bourck', and (?)Denis Best, whose ink-stamped initials are found on the first page of music. A letter from Best to Col. Porter, addressed from 'Lower Broadheath,

Worcester', is included (5 March 1936).

59. See the description in Bibliothèque Raphaël Esmerian, Premiere Partie (Paris, 1972), p. 158. 'Cette

partie pour 'ténor', à laquelle était adjointe celle pour 'soprano'. A figure dans la bibliothèque du

colonel H. C. M. Porter. La partition pour 'soprano' fait aujourd'hui partie de la donation Henri

Davis, celle pour 'basse', provenant de la bibliothèque Amberst de Hackney (1909, no. 772) est au

British Museum...De la bibliothèque du Major Abbey (1965, I, no. 613)'. It is also described in the

Christie's Catalogue of Important Books and Manuscripts...on Monday, November 28, 1960, p. 41, with the note, 'the dedication copy bound for kinq james'. See also the illustration in Les Trésors des

Bibliothèques de France, vol. 3 (ig29)[Plate LXXXII]. I acknowledge helpful communications from

John Bidwell of The Pierpont Morgan Library (21 November 2005) and Philippa Marks of the British

Library (22 November 2005). 60. The two part-books in the Bodleian Library are not as yet in the university's on-line catalogue. A

paper clipping in the superius part-book, Buchanan f.50, from William Ridler, bookseller, lists the

volume with a catalogue number (477) and describes it as 'rare, autograph of Boswell, from the

Auchinleck Library..,£8.4S... no copy of this edition with music was in the Laing or Craig collections,

but another copy sold in the Auchinleck sale for £g.i2s - see Lot 641'. The British Library bassus

part-book was indeed Lot 641 in the June 1892 Sotheby sale of books from Auchinleck (QB-En copy

of catalogue at AZA.6o.d). It is listed as formerly being in Thomas Ruddiman's library. For confirma

tion of this I am grateful to Murray Simpson of the National Library of Scotland; also to Peter Ward

Jones of the Music Section, Bodleian Library, for clarifying the pencilled note, 'bought at Day's' on

the flyleaf of the Bodleian bassus part-book, Mus. 55.d.94, which bears the acquisition date of 10

May 1962. Day's was apparently a London antiquarian bookshop and subscription library that had

premises in London, but which moved to Thame, Oxfordshire by the 1960s.

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(Venice, 1560) by Çiovanni Contino (01513-01574); the second book of motets (Lyons,

1548) of Dominique Phinot (C1510-C1555); Cantiones tum sacrae of Jacob de Brouck (fl.

1568-83); motets by Cipriano de Rore (Venice, 1563), the Modulationum (Venice, 1562) of Bernardo Çarugli (1535-65), the Motetti del Frutto (Venice, 1562) containing compositions

by Çombert, Verdelot, Arcadelt, Certon and others. These publications may well provide an important context for Servin's compositional style.

The original vellum binding of the Psalmi Davidis part-books appears to have

had the spine removed and a new one supplied to accommodate these other works.

When this was done is uncertain. The present state of the bindings (which include ties, some of which are missing) is rather fragile, with some covers worn or stained. The paper

itself, however, is still in good condition, and lack of rubbing on the pages or worn covers

indicates infrequent use (the title page of the tenor book has a patch on the verso side

to cover a tear). Manuscript versions of four of Servin's psalms are also extant, though these are later copies (1583).61

The full set of part-books in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (L.mm. 31-35), seems to have reached there by the mid-nineteenth century. It does not appear in the

catalogue published by Trinity in the early eighteenth century (c 1715) but nevertheless

the volumes had the benefit of an extensive eighteenth-century re-binding programme,

leaving them in anonymous calf. They were re-backed in 1954. A possible sign of ownership is an 'hf on the title page of the contratenor volume, initials that have been obliterated

from the title page of the superius volume.62

The tenor part in the Library of St Andrews University (Buch BS1442.B8B79) is

incomplete, wanting A-A.iv (title page, preliminaries, Psalm I and the opening of Psalm

II), and Dd. ii-iii (the end of Psalm XL). Finally, the superius copy in the National Library

of Scotland (Cwn.536), again bound in the original limp vellum, is evidently complete. From the collection of William Cowan, the scholar of Scottish psalmody, the copy bears

a pencilled note on the flyleaf that it came 'from a convent abroad'. Further provenance is unknown as Cowan left no detailed catalogue of his collection.63 The bassus part in

61. See M. L. Çoellner, Katalog der Musikhandschriften 2: Tabulaturen und Stimmbücher, vol. 5/2 (Munich, 1979), p. 105, 109. "3· Dr Çoellner notes that manuscript versions of four of Servin's Buchanan psalms are included the part-books of the huge collection of motets (MS 1536). This is a later manuscript (1583) from the monastery of St Zeno bei Reichenhall, almost certainly copied

from the printed edition. The psalms of Servin in manuscript are nos. 15, 28, 29 [unnumbered], and

30.1 am grateful to both Dr. Çoellner (communication of 16 July 2005) and Sabine Kurth, Bavarian State Library (communication of 25 July 2005).

62. See Durkan, Bibliography of Buchanan, p. 84-85.1 acknowledge helpful communications from Charles

Benson, Trinity College Library (21, 24 August 2004).

63. I am grateful to Helen Vincent, National Library of Scotland, for confirming the lack of a catalogue of Cowan's library (communication of 10 March 2005). The copy has the name 'Servinus' handwrit ten upside down on the title page, mutilated title and dedication pages, and shows water staining throughout.

244




the Library of Cambridge University (MR240.CI.55.5), now in a modern binding, is but a

fragment, having only A i-iv and these eight pages cropped.64 It seems clear from the layout of the part-books that each part was to be sung

by no more than two voices. Where two voice-parts appear on a page, moreover, on

turning over, the 'directs' consist of figures of birds or animals, each the exact reverse of

what is seen at the place where the same part left off on the preceding page.65 An index

of psalms according to the number of voices is printed on the page following the legend,

'Finis primae partis psalmorum'. The reception of these Buchanan psalm-settings across

Europe is at the moment unclear. The presence of part-books in British and Irish librar

ies may indicate that the settings were performed in these islands. Until more research

is undertaken on the diffusion and reception of Servin's settings of the Buchanan para

phrases, however, the history of the work's performance life will remain obscure.

The Psalmi Davidis: content, structure, style

These settings are in the form of motets. In general structure they derive from

Franco-Flemish models, in which settings of psalms and other sacred texts gave rise to

the motet as a genre. This line of development runs from ]osquin through Çombert,

Clemens non Papa, Witlaert and Crequillon to those more directly in the connection

between Antwerp and Lyon in the sixteenth century such as Phinot and Jean de Castro

(C1540-C1600).66 And of course to the prodigious Lassus (Orlando di Lasso, 1532-94), who

wrote in the motet form more than any other. Servin's contemporaries Qoudimel, Paschal

de l'Estocart and Claude Le Jeune were producing motets in florid counterpoint as well

as more straightforward harmonizations of Qenevan psalm tunes.67

Of Servin's 41 psalm settings, nineteen are ostensibly for four voices, fifteen for

five, four for six, one for seven, and two for eight voices, although in many psalms Servin

varies the number of voices per section. Each psalm text is divided into self-contained

segments corresponding to the text verses, and each segment has a distinctive musical

character. As noted, Servin often provides a central section or sections for fewer voices.

64- According to a marginalium on the title page ('Camdens Britannia 1594') the fragment may originally have been bound along with a copy of Camden's work, the pages having been cropped to fit the

binding. A former Librarian of the university, Francis Jenkinson, gifted the bassus fragment.

65. This is noted by Bell, 'Notes on Some Music,' p. 341. 66. Phinot and Castro both had connections to Lyons, and if Servin did indeed pass some time there

around 1570 he could have come into contact with their works. Castro's three-part chansons, com

posed between 1569 and 1575, were modelled on Lasso's chansons, motets and madrigals; see I.

Bossuyt, Orlando di Lasso as a Model for Composition as Seen in the Three-Voice Motets of Jean de Castro', in Orlando di Lasso Studies, ed. P. Bergquist (Cambridge, 1999), p. 158-82.

67. See, for instance, the settings written in the 1590s by Claude Le Jeune, Les Psaumes de David mis en

musique a III parties (1602-10), ed. D. Lamothe (Tours, 2000); also J-M. Noailly, 'Les harmonisations

des psaumes au XVIIe siècle: Claude Çoudimel ou Claude Le Jeune?' Psaume: bulletin de la recherche

sur le psautier Huguenot, no.2 (1988), p. 42-52.

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varying the texture overall so that in the more protracted psalms there is no sense of

an unrelieved body of sound in the separate divisions of the Latin text but rather, an

ebb-and-flow of vocal effect. On several occasions (e.g., Psalm X, tertia pars, Psalm XII,

tertia pars) he employs the coro spezzato effect of a double choir, a textural contrast

derived from Franco-Flemish sources and developed in Italy, especially Venice and its

sphere of cultural influence.68 In a number of settings Servin highlights a key textual phrase as a cantus

firmus, such as the Opem poposci te, Deus' of Psalm XLI. The phrase is repeated from

four to six times in Part ι (secundus tenor), Part 2 (superius, secundus superius). Part 3

(contratenor), and Part 4 (tenor). Contrastingly, in Psalm XXXIV, each of the six segments has a cantus firmus in the second superius voice that is stated from four up to nine times

throughout: 'Laudabo Dominum', 'Dominum timentum castra munit Angelus', 'Çens sancta Dominum colite', 'Linguae refraena virus','lustum invocantem Dominus audit', and

'Animas tuetur se colentium Deus'. This technique draws attention to key phrases in the

text and provides a unifying element in the text-music relationship. What is more, Servin

repeats the cantus firmus at irregular intervals to avoid any impression of symmetry. The jubilant opening of Psalm I, 'Felix ille animi, quem non de tramite' sets the

tone for Servin's polyphony as he matches the different metres of Buchanan's Latin text.

In this he is quite free in his treatment, often using an overlap technique among the voices

in accommodating the textual narrative while at the same time allowing space to the indi

vidual voices as they develop the melodic line. Yet this technique never obscures the clear

articulation of the words. In particular, he does not follow the 'musique mesurée' art of the time by confining the melodic line to the demands of 'vers mesurée a l'antique'. This

technique in any case belonged to French verse and song and was developed especially

by Claude Le Jeune.69 Servin does not hesitate to repeat words like 'felix' (Psalm XL) and

to spread it among the voice parts. In contrast to the opening of Psalm I, this Psalm XL

68. For example, in Psalm XXV, secunda pars. See A. F. Carver, Cori spezzati: The Development of Sacred

Polychoral Music in the Time of Schutz (Cambridge, 1988), p. 40: also, 'composers like Claudin treat

psalms in a motet-like manner'. The Venetian sphere of influence would also include the prominent Flemish composer, Çiaches de Wert (1535-96), who although based at Mantua had contact with the court at Ferrara. See Carol MacCtintock, Çiaches de Wert (1535-1596): Life and Works. MusicologicaI Studies and Documents, xvii (1966); lain Fenlon, Çiaches de Wert: Letters and Documents (Paris, 1996).

69. In any case, the hitherto secret art of musique mesurée a l'antique developed by the Académie de

Poesie et Musique only became public with the chansonsettes mesurées to poems by Baif in 1583. See

D.P Walker, 'Claude Le Jeune and musique mesurée' (with F. Lesure), in Music, Spirit and Language in the Renaissance, ed. P. Qoue (London, 1985), p. 151-70; I. His, 'Claude Le Jeune et la publication de ses airs mesurées', in Poetry and Music in the French Renaissance, ed. J. Brooks, P. Ford and

Q. Jondorf (Cambridge, 2001), p. 241-80. Notably, Le Jeune's 'Le Printemps', published just three

years after his death in 1600, was dedicated by his daughter Cécile to 'Jacques 1er d'Angleterre' after

James became king of his soi-disant 'Qreat Britain' in 1603. See also the measured Latin motets of du Caurroy (1609).

246




uses sombre jagged harmony ('Cum circumfremerent timor et minas') to reflect the fear and menace explicit in the first lines of text.

Despite the original effects that Servin uses to illumine the Latin words, the

amount of repetition, sometimes on a single pitch, indicates that he took their sense seri

ously; he was not writing solely to convey a musical effect. In this he was moving away from a purely musical elaboration towards a new emphasis on the meaning of the text, a trait

he shares with his illustrious contemporary, Lassus. He employs a number of techniques to

this end, among which, prominently, is word painting, often through melismatic elabora

tion. Countless examples occur, some graphic in their impact. In Psalm XXX, for instance,

Servin has the voices imitate stringed instruments, settling arpeggiated on a chord that

is repeated for a few measures to the word 'sonabunt' in a harp- or lyre-like simulation,

a technique drawn from his knowledge of the chanson repertoire, particularly that of

Janequin.70 A similar effect occurs in Psalm XXVI, tertia pars, mm. 20-22, with a pattern

of rapidly repeated notes to the text, 'Te nostra pangent tympana, te iyra'. It is unlikely,

however, that he intended these settings to be accompanied by instruments though other

composers tried this out in accordance with hints in the psalm texts themselves.71

While most of the psalms are ostensibly for four- or five-voice groupings, with

a smaller number for six, seven and eight voices, some are for higher voices (vocibus

paribus') and one. Psalm XXXIII, is for boys or young male voices in five parts ('V. vocum

pueror.'). Further, Servin often varies the vocal texture by reducing or increasing the

number of voices. The most prominent example of this is the lengthy Psalm XVIII, which

is in no fewer than seventeen sections, the number of voices ranging from two to seven

(5< 5, 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 6, 4, 4, 3, 5,4, 5, 7). By contrast. Psalm XV is cast in a single

movement for eight voices and extends to 91 measures, with a caesura in the middle. Yet

another technique he uses to achieve contrast is through alternating textures, juxtapos

ing sections in homophony and polyphony, often to dramatic effect. He uses imitative

and close entries skillfully, the voices often crossing one another in a vocal tapestry that

creates interest for the singers.

Voice-crossing and the resolution of a discord by leap rather than step were

forbidden in strict counterpoint, but Servin and his contemporaries were exercising a new

freedom in both text-setting and vocal movement: to some extent the prolific Lassus and

70. Psalm XXX, quinta pars, mm. 21-27.

71. McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 263 quotes the Reformer Martin Bucer (1491-1551) on the matter of psalm

accompaniment (in translation from Latin): 'the Psalms were sung to certain instruments as every

body well knows, but so that the accompaniment of the instruments should prepare the mind to

grasp more fully the words of the sacred song'. The passage is from Bucer's Sacrorum Psalmorum

Libri Quinqué ( 1529, repr. Basel, 1547), 'Praefatio', fo..alpha 6. Although this refers to Old Testament

practice, it is clear that, in the sixteenth century, some composers used instruments to accompany

psalms. The title of Loys Bourgeois' Vingt-quatre psaumes a quatre voix (1547) states that certain

psalms are most suited to instrumental music ('bien convenables aux instruments').

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his Latin motets may have provided the model here.72 Servin employs unusual leaps in

the vocal part such as a diminished fifth or augmented interval, or more rarely, a ninth

or tenth. The shift from a major to a minor third is a common, device, indeed almost a

Renaissance cliché. His modal conceptions often shift through a spectrum of keys within

a single piece.73 At the same time the part-writing is full of invention and forward melodic

movement. Like other late Renaissance composers Servin was experimenting with modal

shifts and the relation of modes to one another as a reaction to Qlarean's and more

particularly Zarlino's schemes.74

While Servin conceives the modal relationships within each psalm-motet as

essentially related there are variations on this principle. In Psalm IV, for example, the first three sections are in an Ε-modality but the fourth and final section is in a D-modality with a cadence on A that reconciles, as it were, the modal poles. He occasionally employs

fauxbourdon passages, as in Psalm XXIII and elsewhere. He still uses the standard clef combinations of the late sixteenth century, high clefs or chiavette (g2, C2, C3, and C4 or

F3) and low clefs (ci, C3, C4 and F4). Flat and natural signs respectively indicate cantus

72. Servin would have had direct knowledge of Lassus not only through the Sacrae cantiones (1562) but also through Çoulart's publication, in Qeneva, of the small octavo volume of 87 leaves, Thrésor de

musique d'Orlande de Lassus, contenant ses chansons à quatre, cinq, & six parties (1576) and the two books of psalms and cantiques (1577). See Droz, 'Simon Qoulart', p. 266-67. An enlarged, third edition of the Thrésor, dedicated to 'Philippe de Pas, gentilhomme François', was published in 1594; de Pas was a refugee in Qeneva, a minor French author who edited spiritual works such as those of Bernard de Montméja; see ]. Pineaux, La poésie des Protestants de langue française (Paris, 1971), p. 316-17, 322. For studies of Lassus see W. Boetticher, Orlando di Lasso und seiner Zeit (Kassel,

1958); H. Leuchtmann, Orlando di Lasso (Wiesbaden, 1976); A. Coeurdevey, Roland di Lassus (Paris,

2003). Coeurdevey (p. 288) points to the initials 'LS.M' (?Jean Servin, Musicien) as the possible author

of a poem in the anthology of motets issued without editor, Theatrum musicum Orlandi de Lassus

aliorumque praestantissimorum musicorum (Çeneva, 1580). Yet Droz, 'Simon Qoulart', p. 277 had

already identified the author as Johannes] S [pondanus] M[auleonensis], i.e Jean de Sponde. See

François Ruchon, 'Jean de Sponde, Ingénieur', Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, xiv (1952), p. 277f. The influence of Lassus's chansons on Protestants is discussed in Freedman, The Chansons

of Orlando di Lasso, passim.

73. Prima pars, m. 33, tertia pars, m. 30. On the large question of modality in late Renaissance music, see

H. Powers, 'Tonal Types and Modal Categories in Renaissance Polyphony', Journal of the American

Musicological Society 34 (1981), p. 428-70; also P. Bergquist, 'Modal Ordering within Orlando di

Lasso's Publications', in Orlando di Lasso Studies, p. 203-26. Further, S. Hermelink, Dispositiones modorum: die Tonarten in der Musik Palestrinas und seiner Zeitgenossen (Tutzing, i960); Β. Meier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony, trans. E. Beebe (New York, ig88)[original, Die Tonarten der

klassischen Vokalpolyphonie (Utrecht, 1974)].

74. French composers generally adopted the second scheme of Zarlino (1571,1573) with its numbering and names of modes: six pairs of authentic-plagal modal octaves, with finals in order of the natural

heiachord, c d efg a; c authentic (mode 1) to/piagai (mode 8) were now called by the old names, Dorian to Hypomixolydian, the g-final modal octaves became Ionian and Hypoionian, and only the

names Aeolian and Hypoaeolian (modes 11 and 12) referred to the same modal octaves as they had

in Qlarean's system.

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mollis and cantus durus systems, and the pitch specified by the final is the lowest sonority

of the final chord of the piece.7S In terms of measure, Servin frequently contrasts common time with short sec

tions of triple time within individual movements of a psalm. Motion within the voices is

constantly varied by cross-rhythms and delayed entries. Servin also draws on a variety of

melodic and rhythmic devices, some madrigal-like or derived from chanson idioms. These

often appear in combination with rising or falling groups of quavers or semiquavers, and

occur especially when three voices are singing (fauxbourdon makes a periodic appearance

in such contexts). Thus the clarity of the rhythmic flow is not compromised, as it might

be if such devices were used for a greater number of voices.

Qenerally speaking, each movement of each piece begins with a single voice in

a motto-like phrase cast normally in longer notes that is imitated in rhythmic proximity—

though not in strict canon—by the other voices. Short canonic passages do however

occasionally appear, as in Psalm XXXV, quinta pars, where Servin combines an inverted

canonic imitation with word painting to illustrate the phrase, 'dentem dente acuunt'. The

final cadences of each movement are always varied, occasionally ending on an open fifth.

On rare occasions, such as in Psalm VI, prima pars, Psalm IX, prima pars, or Psalm XXII,

tertia pars, the last cadence ends abruptly, as if Servin is eager for the singers to move on

to the next section. The vocal lines are never prolonged unrealistically; Servin punctuates

the flow with rests at appropriate moments, the sign of a composer well acquainted with

the practicalities of vocal performing style.

Assessment

A recent article observes that the silence of scholars regarding Jean Servin is

difficult to explain.76 For one thing, of course, he was caught between the competing

worlds of the Renaissance and the Reformation.77 The former world involved an inter

pretation of humanity based on the rediscovery of ancient Qreece and Rome; the other a

vision of the world of Qod's creation stripped of idolatry and superstition ('post tenebras

lux'). The forces within these movements, containing both conservative and progressive

elements, particularly affected someone like Servin who, as a composer from a Franco

Flemish tradition of polyphony that was becoming increasingly affected by madrigalian

75· The clefs fit the range of the vocal parts and indicate the range of the piece from the lowest bassus

pitch to the highest note in the superius.

76. Qagnepain, 'Réforme et humanisme', p.135.

77. Cf. another composer caught between two different worlds, M. Bizzarini, Luca Marenzio: The Career

of a Musician between the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation (Aldershot, 2002). As a composer

of madrigals Marenzio, a younger contemporary of Servin, had as his teacher Qlovanni Contino, one

of whose works, Modulationum (Venice, 1560) is bound with Servin's psalms in the Bavarian State

Library.

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expression and figuralism, must have found it difficult to adapt to the preferred music

of worship in the post-Calvin Qeneva in which he, as a refugee, had settled.78 Calvin, who

recognised the expressive power of music, had clearly announced what kind of praise was

acceptable in divine service.79 Yet Servin's three books of chansons nouvelles, published in

Qeneva in the year prior to the Buchanan psalm settings, demonstrate fairly conclusively that part-music was sung by Huguenots in non-liturgical contexts.

Thus, the background of musical practice in which Servin worked was not

hostile to the idea of polyphony as an extra-liturgical activity. Although Servin's set

tings of Buchanan's religious poetry were not intended for liturgical use, Bèze's letter of recommendation states that as a composer of polyphonic music Servin was well known

in Çeneva. In any case he saw himself as a 'compositeur de musique', signing himself thus in his early setting of all 150 psalms.80 For him, 'musical art' meant polyphony, and

songs with independent parts. The Buchanan psalm-settings are examples, then, of such

'musical art', and this in turn presupposes musicians able to read and perform such

music, professionals or skilled amateurs. In contrast, Buchanan's psalm paraphrases in

homophonic settings by Olthoff were extremely popular in Protestant northern Qermany

from the late sixteenth all through the seventeenth century (to 1702) simply because they were relatively easy to sing.81

In the pre-Reformation world a liturgical context had demanded a trained choir

such as that enjoyed by Lassus in Munich or the more conservative Philippe da Monte (1521

1603) in Vienna around the same time. And this was a world familiar to Servin through his study of masters of the past and of his own time. But Lassus was already moving away

from the balanced aesthetic of music and text of their contemporary, Palestrina (C1525/26

94), towards a dynamic in which the text assumed a new significance: in this case, for

Servin, the power of Çjod's Word as manifest in the Bible and the psalm texts in particular as interpreted by a leading humanist. As one who had imbibed the influence of Italy and

Franco-Flemish composers Servin, although an experienced writer of polyphony, found

78. For this period in the city, see R.M. Kingdon, Qeneva and the French Protestant Movement 1564-1572

(Qeneva, 1967); Ç. Lewis, 'Calvinism in Çeneva in the Time of Calvin and of Beza (1541-1605)', in

International Calvinism 1541-1715, ed. M. Prestwich (Oxford, 1985), p. 39-70.

79. ]. Calvin, 'Jean Calvin: The Qenevan Psalter (1542), Epistle to the Reader', in Strunk's Source Readings in Music History, ed. L. Treitler (New York, 1998), p. 364-67. Calvin's words in translation are, "...

when we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better

songs nor more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made

and spoke through him'. Calvin's purpose was to remove the musical expression of praise from the

pre-Reformation choirs with their Latin texts to the mouths of the people, as Erasmus had recom

mended. See also N. Labelle, Les différents styles de la musique religieuse en France. Le Psaume de

1539 a 1572, 3 vois (Henryville, Ottawa; Binningen, 1981). 80. See η. 17. 81. See Durkan, Bibliography of Buchanan, passim.

250




himself more and more inclining to engagement with the text and consequently more will

ing to include passages of homophony in order to highlight aspects of the words.

As far as Protestant Çeneva was concerned there were sufficiently competent

amateur musicians able to sing in a polyphonic style, but not, of course, in church where

it was disallowed because for Calvin the problem of music was the divorce between

the melody and the revealed Word; in a liturgical context, a pleasing melody had to be

subordinated to the sense of the words.82 Part-singing in this context, therefore, was a

non-liturgical art that took up settings of the psalms in French such as those by Qoudimel and at the same time, in the performing chansons spirituelles, substituted spiritual for

secular texts. Servin's two books of chansons, published just before the Buchanan psalm

settings, suggest the practice of singing part-music at home by French Protestants.83 After

all, there was also a long history of polyphonic elaboration of the monophonie Çenevan

Psalter, culminating in Le Jeune's Dodecachorde of 1598.84

What is more, Servin's musicality was known to the Reformers, and to the

Compagnie des Pasteurs that had been founded and guided by Calvin until his death in

1564. The reluctance of Servin to fulfill satisfactorily the tasks of music director at St Pierre

may have resulted in part from his feeling that, despite his adherence to Calvinist principles,

instructing the choir and the students of the college in the relatively simple psalm melodies

was beneath him. For him, just as for Buchanan, the conflict between Renaissance human

ism and the Reformation was one that had to be resolved through works of art that would

incorporate and fuse elements of both movements. He may have imagined that his elabo

rate settings of these psalm paraphrases, with their word painting and madrigal elements,

would appeal to King James as the pupil of Buchanan, and that the singers—perhaps those

belonging to the Chapel Royal—would be able to sing them at court entertainments—a

context unavailable to him in Çeneva. But by 1579 such entertainments were mostly in the

vernacular; Buchanan's Latin masques, after all, had been performed more than twenty

years earlier. And by this time King ]ames was reacting against the strict regimen and

radical ideas (especially on kingship) of his erstwhile tutor.85

As regards Servin's later reputation, it is possible to see in him the fate of the

refugee artist, for a series of articles on the history of music in Switzerland published in

82. See Β. Boccadoro, 'L'ethique musicale chez Jean Calvin', in L'Art de la Tradition, ed. Çj. Bedouiller,

C. Belin, S. de Reyff (Fribourg, 2005), p. 243-65.

83. Servin made settings of Psalms 13, 119,121, 124 and 143 (in Arabic numbering) to texts from the

Çenevan psalter, although not all the verses are set.

84. See further R. Freedman,'Le Jeune's Dodecachorde as a Site for Spiritual Meanings', Revue de mu

sicologie 89/2, p. 298-309.

85. See R. A. Mason, Kingship and the Commonweal: Political Thought in Renaissance and Reformation Scotland (East Linton, 1998), p. 187-241 also Çeorge Buchanan: The Political Poetry, ed. P.T. McCjinnis and A. H. Williamson (Edinburgh, 1995).

251




the late 1950s, for instance, does not mention him at all.86 Nor was he recognized in France

after his death as a French composer who glorified the monarchy, the nation or the estab

lished church in post-Renaissance times, even by proxy. Following the Revocation of the

Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the Revolution a century later, the evolving civil state placed his music at an even more distant remove from a French Renaissance context and 'the

history of French music'. Recently, however, as a transnational figure of the age—like the

Huguenot poet Agrippa d'Aubigné, who also found refuge in Qeneva—Servin has begun to appear in the work of cultural historians and musicologists.87 It is quite possible that

he influenced composers such as L'Estocart and Le ]eune, whose publications appeared

later, although no acknowledgment of this is evident. A re-assessment of Servin's output as a whole is long overdue, together with sympathetic editions of his music, foremost

among which must be his majestic Buchanan psalm settings.88 It is uncertain, on the other hand, when or how often these published set

tings were performed in Çeneva or France. Servin may have tried some of them out with

musicians in the context of domestic music making. The energetic Simon Qoulart appar

ently put together a choir on at least two occasions in Qeneva, once to try out cantique s

composed by Bèze (March 1597) and later, unspecified music (1604).89 This may well have

been the kind of context for newly composed music, or for Çoulart's own published

adaptations of chansons by Lassus. The presence of a set of part-books in Munich hints

that they may have been performed in Bavaria - although the court where Lassus served

was a Counter-Reformation one - and perhaps even Ireland and Spain, where copies of Servin's part-books are extant. The reason for performance in such Catholic locations

would surely have been the nature of the settings (i.e. polyphony to Latin psalm texts), which might hinder such performance only if the authors were known to be heretics.90

86. C. Tappolet, 'Fragments d'une histoire de la musique a Çenève', Revue musicale Suisse 93 (1953),

p. 15-17; 456-59; 94 (1954). P· 139-42, 414-16; 95 (1955), p.190-91; 98 (1958), p. 196-98. See also the

brief note that includes Servin, in W. Blankenburg, Chapter V of F. Blume, Protestant Church Music:

A History (London, 1975), p. 537.

87. The recent interest in his music is evident in studies of the period such as I. Cazeau, French Music in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford, 1975), p. 60, 131, i88f., 194, 196, 205, 208, 217, 241 and F. Dobbins, Music in Renaissance Lyons (Oxford, 1992), p. 168,174, 207, 210, 264, 266. The

entries on Servin in the New Çrove Dictionary of Music & Musicians (1980) and its second edition

(2001) are both inadequate; see rather Droz, Simon Cjoulart', and Qagnepain, 'Servin, Jean', in Die Musik in Qeschichte und Çegenioart, vol. 12 (Kassel, 1964), p. 529. The entry by Qagnepain [Manuel

Çervink] in the most recent edition of MQQ (2006), vol. 15, p. 631, contains no new information. 88. An edition of the Servin psalm settings by the present writer is to be published by the Centre d'Études

Supérieures de la Renaissance, University of Tours.

89. For the first of two dates see 0. Douen, Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, vol. i, p. 664 (n.i), and for the other, Jones, Simon Qoulart, p. 290.

90. Hume Brown quotes an apocryphal story of a pope who declared that, had Buchanan not been a

heretic, he would have had his psalms sung in all Catholic churches. See P. Hume Brown, Çeorge Buchanan and His Times (Edinburgh and London, 1906), p. 89.

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Nevertheless these compositions, to neo-Latin texts, can be compared favour

ably with the motets of Çoudimel, who had set several Odes of Horace and published

these in 1555.91 Servin may also have learned from a study of, for example, Lassus's widely

disseminated Sacrae cantiones (1562) as well as those works of his that Qoulart published

in Çeneva, the new emphasis on text significance being a feature held in common.92

While steeped in older works of the French Renaissance he was also abreast of stylistic

developments in the Low Countries and Italy, evident from his integrating, for example,

passages of both fauxbourdon and coro spezzato into his vocal texture.

Second, the texts of the settings demonstrate the ambivalent status of Latin as

a universal language in the context of the Reformation. Even Queen Elizabeth of England

liked her Chapel Royal to sing Protestant services in Latin - although this was something

of a special case and English poets like Sidney were already trying their hand at virtuoso

versification of the psalms in English.93 As in the Vulgate version of the Psalms of David,

Latin had been a medium used by Catholic and Protestant alike, and although the psalms

in the vernacular came to be particularly associated with Protestantism after mid-century,

Buchanan's paraphrases were the product of a humanist mind suffused by classical Roman

poetry and Erasmian evangelism, and constituted an outstanding expression of the spirit

of the age. Some have argued that Buchanan saw serious poetry of this kind as contrib

uting to a restoration of harmony at a political level.94 Servin may well have shared this

view, even if by 1579 the trend, especially in Protestant Europe, was towards music set to

vernacular texts. Still, there are some neo-Latin Christian poems in Paschal L'Estocart's

Sacrae Cantiones(±sS2), which contains settings of mainly French texts.95

In the following century, while Latin continued as a humanistic medium of

education and learning in Protestant Europe; in devotional usage it was gradually more

and more associated with Rome and as a consequence declined in devotional usage out

side the Catholic world. And so Servin's elaborate psalm-settings fell between opposing

traditions, acceptable neither to Calvinist vernacular practice nor, in general, to Catholic

gì. No extant copy of this work survives; see Claude (joudimel: Œuvres Completes, vol. 14, ed.

H. Qagnebin, R. Hausier, and E. Lawry (Henryvilte, Binningen, 1983), p. iii.

92. See n. 71, also Orlando di Lasso: The Complete Motets 2: Sacrae cantiones (Nuremberg, 1562), ed.

]. Erb (Madison, 2002).

93. See The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke, ed. J.C.A. Rathmell (New York,

1963). Also J.R. Phillips, 'Qeorge Buchanan and the Sidney Circle', Huntington Library Quarterly 12

(1948), p. 23-55; H. Hamlin, 'Psalm Culture in the English Renaissance: Readings of Psalm 137 by

Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, and Others', Renaissance Quarterly Iv/i (2002), p. 224-57.

94. McFarlane, Buchanan, p. 285. Further, P. van Tieghem, 'La littérature latine de la Renaissance',

Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, iv (1944), p. 177-418; A.H.T. Levi ed., 'Çeorge Buchanan

and French Humanism', in Humanism in France (Manchester, 1970), p. 295-319.

95. See Paschal L'Estocart, Sacrae Cantiones (1582), ed. A. Coeurdevey and V. Besson (Turnhout, 2004),

p. XV.

253




non-liturgical art because of their perceived origins in the Reformed world.96 While one

would not claim major status for Servin in view of his relatively modest output, he deserves

attention for his originality of musical thought both in his chansons spirituelles and the

Buchanan psalm settings. ]ust as importantly, his compositions challenge the conventional

view of musical composition and practice in Qeneva in the later sixteenth century.97

g6. The complete set of part-books in Dublin and Munich raises the possibility of performance in those cities (though where and when is unclear). The upper voice part-books possessed by the Conservatorio in Madrid suggests that there may also have been partial performances there; the manuscript copies in the monastery of St Zeno bei Reichenhall or the unidentified 'convent' mentioned in the Edinburgh superius part-book may indicate similar performances in other locations.

97. See, for example, the assertion of R. Taruskin in The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. i (2005),

Ρ· 754-55: 'Most negative of all was John Calvin (1504-1564), the Qenevan Reformer, whose emphasis on austerity and complete rejection of the sacraments left little room for music in his services, and

none at all for professional music...For all practical purposes, then, the Calvinist church turned its

back on music as an art...The great exception to this pervasive music-hatred was the largest and most

successful of the Reformed Churches, the Lutheran...' Calvin (1509-64) did not reject the sacraments

but reduced them from seven to two: baptism and Holy Communion (the Lutherans had three, adding absolution to the other two). Acknowledging the transformative power of music, Calvin transferred sung worship from the remoteness of Latin texts and professional choirs to the mouths of the people, particularly through the communal singing of psalms in the vernacular, as Erasmus had recommended.

Many of these psalm melodies, of course, are still sung. The publication in Leipzig in 1573, further,

of a Qerman edition of Çoudimel's four-voice psalms by Ambrosius Lobwasser ('nach Frantzösischer melodei und reimen art in Teutsche reimen') helped to align the Lutheran and Qenevan musical

traditions.

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