Souterliedekens

General Information

Published: Symon Cock, Antwerp, 1540

Composer: Jacobus Clemens non Papa

Souterliedekens (litteral: Psalter-songs) is the title of a book with Dutch psalms, published in 1540 in Antwerp and which remained very popular throughout the century. The metrical rhyming psalms were -probably- arranged by a Utrecht nobleman, Willem van Zuylen van Nijevelt (d. 1543). For the melodies he used popular folksongs from the Low Countries (though some have German or French origin). This publication has great value, because the publisher (Symon Cock) not only added the phrase sung to the tune of... but he also provided the actual music (melody) with the texts. Nowadays many of the folksongs can be reconstructed only bacause of the survival of the Souterliedekens.

Composers like Jacobus Clemens non Papa, Gerardus Mes and Cornelis Boscoop made polyphonic settings based on the melody of the monophonic 'Souterliedekens'. The melody often functions as a cantus firmus.

The Antwerp printer Tielman Susato dedicated 4 volumes of his music-books (Musyck Boexkens IV-VII) to Clemens Souterliedekens (volumes IV, V, VI and VII). In 1561 Susato published four more books of Souterliedekens (V-VIII) (Musyck Boexkens VIII-XI). These books, which are only partly preserved, contains four-part settings of the psalms by Gerardus Mes. The otherwise unknown Mes was, according to the title page of his four-part settings, a pupil of Clemens non Papa.

Souterliedekens on CPDL

• Psalm 4 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 5 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 34 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 60 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 128 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 131 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 140 (Clemens non Papa)
• Psalm 145 (Clemens non Papa)