I heard recently that after the Civil War, Americans began using Psalm 23 in funerals and it took on nostalgia for many people. Believers were in the habit of singing psalms back then and were moving toward hymns.
When you think of a traditional melody for Psalm 23, what do you think of? Is this Crimond? The wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten in 1947 put that tune on the world stage. Donald Keddie writes:
The music director of the Royal Wedding, William McKie (1901–1984), visited Balmoral in Scotland and heard one of Princess Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Margaret Egerton, singing a descant of Psalm 23 to CRIMOND, accompanied by Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. McKie wanted to include something Scottish in the Royal Wedding, and Psalm 23’s pastoral imagery fit the bill perfectly.
Unable to find the music for the descant and with two days to go to the wedding, McKie wrote down the music himself shorthand and taught it to the Abbey Choir. The composer of the descant, William Baird Ross (1871–1950), was later surprised to hear his arrangement on the radio broadcast.
The fame of the Royal Wedding made Psalm 23 to CRIMOND a Christian pop song of its era. The brighter, more joyful tune gave new life to the psalm. As a result, American Protestants of all denominations began singing Psalm 23 to this tune, and American Presbyterians embraced a metrical psalm from their own tradition again.
Thanks for this – with link – how interesting and surprising! I have all-to-lazily wondered about the histories of Psalm-translation singing, metrical Psalm-paraphrase singing, and hymn singing, and their inter-relations, in various Reformation church services, without ever yet trying to follow it up properly. (I regret I never tried to go along to the Scots Gaelic Psalm singing I used to see advertised when I was at university!)