1.6 (above average)
Tune of the Day: The Lord's My Shepherd
Psalm 23 is a very popular psalm among musicians, with a large number of different lyrics and musical arrangements appearing through the ages to present day. Without doubt, the most familiar and well-known version of this psalm is that which is found in the Scottish Psalter of 1650, set to the tune “Crimond”.
“Crimond” first appeared in 1872 accompanying the hymn “I am the Way the Truth and the Life”. The tune was credited to David Grant, an amateur musician; it was subsequently revealed, however, that Grant simply helped harmonizing it, and that the true composer was Jessie Seymour Irvine, the daughter of a parish minister who served at Dunottar, Peterhead, and Crimond in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is believed that Irvine wrote the tune while still in her teens, as an exercise for an organ class she was attending.
The popularity of this tune in England grew in part because of its use during the 1947 marriage ceremony between Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.