Souterliedekens

General Information

Publication date and place: .
Symon Cock, Antwerp, 1540

Composer: Jacobus Clemens non Papa

Souterliedekens (literally '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

No.	incipit	Psalm (vulgata)	Tune name	Meter	comments
1	Waerom so rasen die heydensche minschen	001Psalm 1			by Susato
2	Als ick riep met verlanghen	004Psalm 4	Het daghet in den oosten, het lichtet over	76.88 [?!]
3	Verhoort heer myn gheclach	005Psalm 5
7	O Heer wilt my beschouwen	012Psalm xi
24	Verordeelt o heer ick bid u straffen wilt	035Psalm xxxiiii
44	Heere, lieve Heere, verhoort die stemme mijn	061Psalm lx
104	Si bestreden my dicmael	129Psalm cxxviii	Was mein Gott will
106	Ghedenct o Heer David dyn knecht	132Psalm cxxxi
113	Ick heb gheroepen tot u o Heer	141Psalm cxxxx
117	Loven so wilt mijn siel den Heer	146Psalm cxxxxv
118	Loven soe wilt den Heere	148Psalm cxlvii