Pierre Pidoux and the Huguenot Psalter / Pierre Pidoux et le Psautier Huguenot

Pierre Pidoux

Few people have contributed so much to the study of the Huguenot Psalms as Pierre Pidoux. His monumental two volume work about the Huguenot Psalter is even 50 years after its completion 'the' work of reference in this field. However, time goes on, new discoveries are made; so inevitably, some information presented by Pidoux has become obsolete, or proven to be incorrect or incomplete. An augmented and corrected (up-to-date) version would be nice. Since this is not to be expected (times have changed), I decided to start a database with updates  of Pidoux's Psautier Huguenot on this website: Addenda and corrigenda are welcome (dick[at]wursten.be). From my expertise the accent is on volume two (Documents et bibliographie ), but volume one (Les mélodies) is also occasionally imperfect or incomplete [and could benefit from the addition of Pidoux's later studies on the three precentors who contributed the melodies - only available in typoscript]. Pidoux's Psautier Huguenot is downloadable via archive.org: volume 1 & volume 2. Already in 1963 in their laudatory review (Revue de Musicologie, Vol. 49, No. 127 (Dec., 1963), pp. 237-244) François Lesure and Marc Honneger suggested a number of corrections and additions. I used them as a the frame in which I inserted the rest. (Their contributions are marked by FS and MH). Corrections by Howard Slenk, who wrote his dissertation on the Huguenot Psalter in the Low Countries (Ohio, 1965) are referred to as HS.

  1. UPDATES and CORRECTIONS Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle; vol 1 Les mélodies (Basle, 1962)
  2. UPDATES and CORRECTIONS Le psautier huguenot du XVIe siècle; vol 2 Documents et bibliographie (Basle, 1962)

As a tribute to this scholar I also added a biography (based on Grove's Dictionary, but with additions), and the English translation of Pidoux's own synthesis of his research: 'Pierre Pidoux, 'History of the Genevan Psalter', Reformed Music Journal 1/1-3  (Jan-July, 1989)

 

 

 

This site was last updated Friday, 26 January 2024