Pierre Pidoux (4 March 1905, in Neuchatel – 16 July 2001, in Geneva), was a Swiss theologian, organist and musicologist, brother of Edmond Pidoux.
Pierre Pidoux (4 March 1905, in Neuchatel – 16 July 2001, in Geneva), was a Swiss theologian, organist and musicologist, brother of Edmond Pidoux.
Pierre's father was a Protestant Swiss minister, who worked in Belgium (in the Borinage. Because of the 'Great War' Pierre was sent back to Switzerland and grew up in Neûchatel. He graduated in theology in 1933 (Lausanne) and became a minister of the Eglise Libre in Winterthur. After a visit to Glasgow, he began to study the organ at the Conservatory in Geneva from 1933 to 1936. He founded and directed the Choeur J.S. Bach in Lausanne until 1948, holding at the same time an organ post in Lausanne. In 1948 he was appointed organist at the Protestant Church of Montreux, where he lived together with his wife, Gertrude Junod-Burger. From 1946 to 1965 he was in charge of the hymnology course at the theology faculty of the Eglise Libre in Lausanne; in 1964 he was given the honorary doctorate in theology by the university.
Pidoux’s activities have been devoted mostly to hymnology, musicology and teaching. Though he has edited many volumes of other early music (e.g. Andrea Gabrieli and Girolamo Frescobaldi), he is generally known as a specialist in the history of the Huguenot psalter. His magnum opus is the two-volume edition of text and melodies of this Psalter: Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle, i: Les mélodies; ii: Documents et bibliographie (Basle, 1962). He promoted the music of the Protestant church (organ, choir and community hymnsinging). He was an editor of the series Collection de Musique Protestante (from 1935) andof the sacred music series Cantate Domino. He contributed music, harmonisations and texts to the new hymnal of the French-speaking Reformed Church of Switzerland (1976). In this hymnal also many texts of his brother, Edmond Pidoux, literature professor in Lausanne, are present. In 1967 he co-edited the complete works of Claude Goudimel. He composed many works for mixed choir and organ.
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"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" is one of the best known hymns by the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, a prolific hymnwriter. Luther wrote the words and composed the hymn tune between 1527 and 1529. It has been translated into English at least seventy times and also into many other languages. The words are mostly original, although the first line paraphrases that of Psalm 46.
"Old 100th" or "Old Hundredth" is a hymn tune in long metre, from the second edition of the Genevan Psalter. It is one of the best known melodies in many occidental Christian musical traditions. The tune is usually attributed to the French composer Louis Bourgeois.
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a verse translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or harmonisations. The composition of metrical psalters was a large enterprise of the Protestant Reformation, especially in its Calvinist manifestation.
Loys "Louis" Bourgeois was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. He is most famous as one of the main compilers of Calvinist hymn tunes in the middle of the 16th century. One of the most famous melodies in all of Christendom, the tune known as the Old 100th, to which the Protestant doxology is often sung, is commonly attributed to him.
Pierre Viret was a Swiss Reformed theologian, evangelist and Protestant reformer.
The Genevan Psalter, also known as the Huguenot Psalter, is a metrical psalter in French created under the supervision of John Calvin for liturgical use by the Reformed churches of the city of Geneva in the sixteenth century.
The Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg is a Latin Catholic diocese in Switzerland, which is exempt.
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm, with or without refrain or chorus.
"Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein" is a Lutheran chorale of 1524, with words written by Martin Luther paraphrasing Psalm 12. It was published as one of eight songs in 1524 in the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch, which contained four songs by Luther, three by Speratus, and one by Justus Jonas. It was contained in 1524 in the Erfurt Enchiridion. It is part of many hymnals, also in translations. The text inspired vocal and organ music by composers such as Heinrich Schütz, who set it as part of his Becker Psalter, and Johann Sebastian Bach, who based a chorale cantata on it. Mozart used one of its tunes in his opera The Magic Flute.
Reformed worship is religious devotion to God as conducted by Reformed or Calvinistic Christians, including Presbyterians. Despite considerable local and national variation, public worship in most Reformed and Presbyterian churches is governed by the Regulative principle of worship.
Louis Rivier was a Swiss painter, writer, and stained glass artist.
Samson Scherrer (1698–1780) was an organ builder in the 18th century.
Gaël Liardon was a Swiss classical keyboard player, composer and academic.
"Nun jauchzt dem Herren, alle Welt" is a German Christian hymn, a paraphrase of Psalm 100. The text was written by David Denicke, based on a metered paraphrase of the psalm from the Becker Psalter, and published in his 1646 hymnal. The song appears in modern German-language hymnals, such as the Protestant Evangelisches Gesangbuch and the Catholic Gotteslob. With a joyful melody derived from a 14th-century model, it is one of the most popular psalm songs in German.
"Mein ganzes Herz erhebet dich" is the beginning of German hymns to a melody from the 16th century, which paraphrase Psalm 138. They are part of Protestant and Catholic hymnals.
Hymnody in continental Europe developed from early liturgical music, especially Gregorian chant. Music became more complicated as embellishments and variations were added, along with influences from secular music. Although vernacular leisen and vernacular or mixed-language carols were sung in the Middle Ages, more vernacular hymnody emerged during the Protestant Reformation, although ecclesiastical Latin continued to be used after the Reformation. Since then, developments have shifted between isorhythmic, homorhythmic, and more rounded musical forms with some lilting. Theological underpinnings influenced the narrative point of view used, with Pietism especially encouraging the use of the first person singular. In the last several centuries, many songs from Evangelicalism have been translated from English into German.
Psalm 150 is a psalm setting by César Franck. He wrote the composition, setting Psalm 150 for four-part choir, orchestra and organ, in 1883. It was published in 1896 by Breitkopf & Härtel. Carus-Verlag published an arrangement for choir, strings and organ. The incipit in French is "Halleluiah! Louez le Dieu, caché dans ses saints tabernacles".
Church music during the Reformation developed during the Protestant Reformation in two schools of thought, the regulative and normative principles of worship, based on reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther. They derived their concepts in response to the Catholic church music, which they found distracting and too ornate. Both principles also pursued use of the native tongue, either alongside or in place of liturgical Latin.
Lili Wieruszowski was a German composer and organist, who was born in Cologne, Germany, and lived in Basel, Switzerland, for many years. She was one of four daughters of Alfred Ludwig Wieruszowski and the women's rights activist Jenny Wieruszowski. Her parents helped start a girls' high school in Cologne, and her sister Helene became a well-known historian. Lili's parents converted from Judaism to Protestantism and raised their daughters as Protestants.
Guillaume Franc was a French musician and composer active in Geneva and Lausanne. He is regarded as instrumental in the development of both the Genevan Psalter and the Lausanne Psalter. Some of the melodies are still used in hymns in the 21st century.
