Decisions concerning the conduct of public worship in the Church of Scotland are entirely at the discretion of the parish minister. As a result, a wide variety of musical resources are used. However, at various times in its history, the General Assembly has commissioned volumes of psalms and hymns for use by congregations.
Scottish Psalter (1564)
The Scottish Psalter of 1564 was based on the first Anglo-Genevan Psalter which had been used by John Knox's congregation. The Scottish Psalter contained most of the tunes of the Anglo-Genevan Psalter and it was completed on the same principles to contain all 150 psalms. Neither of these included hymns. The text of this Psalter expresses the spirit of the original without undue pains to render the text literally. While only the melodies of the tunes were printed, part singing was certainly known, as there is a record of a four-part rendition of Psalm 124 being sung to welcome John Durie back to Edinburgh from exile in 1582. There were 30 metres in all: ninety-eight psalms were set to common metre, 10 to long metre, 6 to short metre and 4 to long metre (6 lines), and there were 26 metres for the other 32 psalms. Some editions of this Psalter printed in 1575 or later included up to 10 other pieces, but these were probably only intended for devotional purposes. Duguid has shown that the Scottish General Assembly closely guarded psalm publishing and had previously disciplined printers for editing the psalms (as had also been done in Calvin's Geneva).Timothy Duguid, Metrical Psalmody in Print and Practice: English 'Singing Psalms' and Scottish 'Psalm Buiks', 1547-1640 (Ashgate Press, 2014), pp. 142-143.
The 1564 edition went through many changes that culminated with the 1635 version. Edited by Edward Millar, the 1635 Scottish Psalter included the very best of the psalm settings for the Sternhold and Hopkins psalms. This included four-part homophonic settings of many of the psalms (those texts that did not have a proper melody were assigned a melody from another psalm), several more complicated or polyphonic psalm settings (also known as Psalms in Reports), and settings of many of the so-called Common Tunes that had come to be used in the seventeenth century.Duguid, Metrical Psalmody, pp. 159–163.
Scots Metrical Psalter (1650) The last edition of the 1564 psalter with music was issued in 1640. However, there had been many attempts to supplant the 1564 edition, including those by none other than James VI/I. Even so, Scots clung to their beloved psalter until the Westminster assembly promised a potential union between the English and Scottish psalters. A complete psalter by Francis Rous, an English member of Parliament, was revised by the Westminster Assembly but did not satisfy the Scots. Over a period of 2 years and 4 months it was revised by direction of the General Assembly, and it has been calculated that about 40% of the lines are original to the Scottish revisors with only 10% from Rous and 30% from the Westminster Version. Accuracy of translation was in the forefront. This psalter continues in use until the present day in parts of Scotland (especially the Highlands), and around the world in some of the smaller Presbyterian denominations.
W. P. Rorison carried out a detailed comparison of the 1650 version with ten earlier psalters to trace every line. He was able to trace 4,846 lines to these ten sources. Psalter Lines Percentage 1564 Scottish version 338 4% Henry Dod (1620) 266 3% King James (1631–1636) 516 6% George Wither (1632) 52 0.5% Sir William Mure of Rowallan 49 0.5% The Bay Psalm Book (1640) 269 3% William Barton (1644) 136 2% Zachary Boyd (1644–1648) 754 9% Francis Rous (1638–1646) 878 10% Westminster version (1647) 1,588 18% presumably original 3,774 44%
In 1929, the music of the psalter was revised by the Church of Scotland to bring its harmonies into line with those in the revision of the hymnal. The psalter was usually printed at the front of the first two editions of the hymnal (1898, 1927), and throughout much of the 20th century there was a widespread tradition of beginning worship with a psalm before continuing in the hymn books. However, the most widely used version of the third edition did not have the psalter in the same volume, with the result that the full psalter has disappeared from the majority of Church of Scotland congregations.
The psalter contained all 150 psalms in their entirety, though obviously many of them were too long to be sung whole. In 1781 a selection of 67 paraphrases of Scripture was given permissive use for a year. Although never officially adopted, the paraphrases had significant use in succeeding years, mainly in the lowlands. Five hymns were inserted at this time without church authority. Reflecting a move from the simplicity and plainness of earlier Scottish worship in some later editions there was also a set of seven trinitarian doxologies ("To Father, Son and Holy Ghost..."), each for a different metrical pattern, which could be sung at the close of a psalm. These were printed together at the end of the psalms, and were intended to allow the Old Testament text to be sung in the light of the New.
All the psalms were present in common meter (CM), which meant that in principle any psalm could be sung to any psalm tune, though not every possible combination would have been regarded as good taste. Musical editions of the psalter were published with the pages sliced horizontally, the tunes in the top half and the texts in the bottom, allowing the two parts of the volume to be opened independently. The music section was arranged alphabetically by the traditional names of the melodies. Psalm 23, "The Lord's my shepherd", would typically be sung to tune 144 "Wiltshire" (tune "Crimond", written in 1872, becoming overwhelmingly popular from the 1930s), but could theoretically be sung to almost any other, the only restriction being the conventions of familiarity.
In addition, some psalms had alternative versions in other meters, including long meter (LM), short meter (SM), and irregular metrical patterns, and each of these had a unique tune. From the 19th century onwards, these often appeared at the end of music editions in whole rather than split pages. An example of a special setting is Psalm 24:7–10, "Ye gates lift up your heads", to the tune "St. George's Edinburgh", a rousing piece traditionally sung after Communion.
Church Hymnary (1898)
The introduction of hymns was part of a reform of worship in the second half of the 19th century which also saw the appearance of church organs and stained glass. This reform began in individual congregations such as Greyfriars Kirk, and it took several decades before the General Assembly was ready to produce a hymnal for the whole of the Church.
The Church Hymnary was compiled by a committee made up of equal numbers of representatives from the Church of Scotland, Free Church of Scotland, the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. As such, the book was authorised for use in public worship by the four Presbyterian denominations. In the preface it was noted that the book was issued "with the fervant prayer that its use in the praises of the sanctuary may be to the glory of God and the edification of His people."
The Hymnary was intended to be used together with the psalter, and thus omitted such favourites as "The Lord's my shepherd". It contained 650 pieces.
Church Hymnary, revised edition (1927)
The second edition of the Hymnary, often abbreviated to RCH or , coincided with the preparations for the union of the Church of Scotland with the United Free Church of Scotland (1929). The 1922 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, along with other sister denominations, instructed their praise committees to work on a revised Church Hymnary. RCH contains 728 hymns and was edited by Welsh composer David Evans. Like its predecessor, it was printed together with the psalter in a single volume, and thus the hymnary itself does not include any of the metrical psalms.
The original draft was produced in 1925, with 694 hymns. After revision and suggestions, this was amended to the final total of 728 hymns. The book was published on 29 September 1927, by the Oxford University Press. There were five forms of the book published: the Standard Staff edition, the Standard Sol-fa Edition; the Melody Edition; words only in longprimer type; and words only in nonpariel type.
It was authorised for use in the Church of Scotland, the United Free Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Presbyterian Church of England, the Presbyterian Church of Wales, the Presbyterian Church of Australia, the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand and the Presbyterian Church of South Africa. The Free Church of Scotland was not included, as in 1905, after the 1900 union, the remaining congregations rescinded the previous General Assembly Acts allowing uninspired sung worship.
A useful resource was the Handbook to the Church Hymnary by James Moffatt and Millar Patrick (published 1927, revised 1928). It gave lengthy biographical notes on the authors and composers, and commentaries on the hymns, as well as additional indexes. It was republished with a supplement in 1935.
Church Hymnary, third edition (1973)
Known as , the 1973 hymnary was more than a new edition, it was an entirely new compilation. It appeared in Oxford University Press, and contained 695 items. When it first appeared, it was widely criticised for omitting many favourite hymns ("By cool Siloam's shady rill" was a prominent example), but it introduced many modern hymns like "Tell out my soul" which soon became popular – albeit to the tune "Woodlands" rather than the prescribed tune "Mappersley" which is rarely, if ever, used.
included those metrical psalms (or sections of psalms) which were most frequently used, and thus effectively replaced the psalter in most congregations, though a version with the full psalter at the front was also printed. All the metrical psalms in the volume were expanded with a trinitarian doxology which the Psalter had printed separately; as a result, these suddenly came to be used far more frequently than ever before.
The volume is structured thematically under eight sections, each (except the last) with a number of subsections: Approach to God The Word of God: His mighty acts Response to the Word of God The sacraments Other ordinances Times and seasons Close of service Personal faith and devotion
The distinctive plain red cover set apart from the previous hymnbooks and psalters, which all had dark blue-black bindings.
Like RCH, also had a handbook: John Barkley, Handbook to the Church Hymnary Third Edition, OUP 1979. Its commentaries are less full and scholarly than those of Moffatt and Patrick, but more closely tailored to the needs of worship preparation.
Songs of God's People (1988) Songs of God's People was conceived as a supplement to CH3, and in many congregations the two were used together. For this reason, it includes no material which is also in CH3, but it does revive a number of items from RCH which had been dropped in the 1973 revision. It also included music from a variety of sources which greatly increased the range of types of music available for worship. For the first time, a Church of Scotland hymnary had: evangelical choruses of the Mission Praise tradition. items of the Wild Goose Resource Group of the Iona Community worship (21 of which were composed by John L. Bell, who chaired the supplement committee). sung responses for use in prayers, which until this time much of the Church of Scotland had regarded with suspicion as being too "Catholic"; three of these were in Latin. short choruses in Swahili, which must be seen in the context of liberation theology and the campaign against apartheid. three of the rock-idiom psalm arrangements by Ian White. a Russian Orthodox Kyrie eleison.