http://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/thanks-be-to-god-our-savior A community serving in liturgy and life Wed, 06 May 2009 02:52:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/thanks-be-to-god-our-savior/comment-page-1#comment-425 Greg Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:52:18 +0000 http://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/?p=869#comment-425 David Diephouse responds: Since you were wondering about the back story of Psalm 107, as I recall it goes something like this: The PH revision committee was fairly close to the end of the whole project when they discovered that they didn't have a usable text that would fit the Genevan tune they were committed to using. At that point, Howard Slenk, a member of the committee, happened to recall that as a Calvin student back in the 60s I had done English verse translations of a couple German song texts for a Capella concert program (another long story), and the committee asked me to try my hand rather than go back and commission one of their Usual Suspects. Why, I have no idea. (I had not been involved in the hymnal project at all.) Why I agreed, I also have no idea. (A lyricist I'm definitely not.) But on a fairly short deadline I managed to cobble the text together. Since the tune was a given, I tried to make the text reflect the peculiar contours of that tune. The committee apparently liked it, because awhile later, even closer to the final project deadline, they discovered that they really didn't like either the proposed text or tune for Ps. 62 and came knocking again. As I was reading the first lines of the psalm, I kept hearing that lovely Tallis tune in my head--maybe I had recently listened to the Vaughan Williams Fantasia--so I used that as inspiration and suggested it to the committee--which is how the Tallis made it into the PH. Those two psalm settings were/are the beginning and end of my songwriting career. David Diephouse responds:
Since you were wondering about the back story of Psalm 107, as I recall it goes something like this: The PH revision committee was fairly close to the end of the whole project when they discovered that they didn’t have a usable text that would fit the Genevan tune they were committed to using. At that point, Howard Slenk, a member of the committee, happened to recall that as a Calvin student back in the 60s I had done English verse translations of a couple German song texts for a Capella concert program (another long story), and the committee asked me to try my hand rather than go back and commission one of their Usual Suspects. Why, I have no idea. (I had not been involved in the hymnal project at all.) Why I agreed, I also have no idea. (A lyricist I’m definitely not.) But on a fairly short deadline I managed to cobble the text together. Since the tune was a given, I tried to make the text reflect the peculiar contours of that tune. The committee apparently liked it, because awhile later, even closer to the final project deadline, they discovered that they really didn’t like either the proposed text or tune for Ps. 62 and came knocking again. As I was reading the first lines of the psalm, I kept hearing that lovely Tallis tune in my head–maybe I had recently listened to the Vaughan Williams Fantasia–so I used that as inspiration and suggested it to the committee–which is how the Tallis made it into the PH. Those two psalm settings were/are the beginning and end of my songwriting career.

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