Old Hundredth

views updated May 09 2018

Old Hundredth (Amer. Old Hundred). Metrical psalm tune of uncertain origin. Its name indicates that it was set to the 100th psalm in the ‘old’ version of the metrical psalms, i.e. Sternhold and Hopkins as distinct from Tate and Brady. The edn. of this version in which it first appeared was Daye's of 1560–1, where it was set to the words ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ by W. Kethe. But the history of the tune goes back to Marot and Béza's Genevan Psalter of 1551, in which it is attached to the 134th psalm. An even earlier form of the tune appears in the Antwerp collection Souter Liederkens (1540). A ceremonial arr. of the tune for ch., congregation, orch., organ, and ‘all available trumpets’ was made by Vaughan Williams for the coronation of Elizabeth II, 1953. (It was also perf. at his funeral in Westminster Abbey, 1958).