Good Metrical Psalters?
  • PLTT
    Posts: 149
    Which modern metrical psalters are generally considered good?

    [I'm assuming most will be Protestant versions - I haven't really seen many Catholic metrical psalms outside of John Dunn's in HPASC, and those included in Teitze's "Hymn Introits" (which use Webber's "A New Metrical Psalter"). ]
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I have used, and like, Webber's Psalter which you mention, the drawback, of course, being that it only uses those psalms, or portions of psalms, that are used in the Anglican Office.

    But, I have also found that Isaac Watt's "Psalms Imitated in the Language of the New Testament" work well, too, and, since some of his psalms are in regular use as hymns, people will be used to the style. While this is obviously not a "modern" version, Watt's language is certainly less Merrie Olde Englande than the New Version (Tate & Brady) or the Old Version (Sternhold & Hopkins), and can generally be "modernized" by substituting our current "You/Your/Yours" for his "Thee/Thy/Thine" without harming the text too much.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,365
    There was a metrical psalter done by Sir Philip Sydney which consists in very beautiful and sensitive language. He only completed the greater part of the psalter, the remainder, which rivals, if not surpasses, his, having been done by his sister. The language would be objected to by callous-minded folk, but is singularly expressive, often showing an acute spiritual insight. I had a treasured copy, but somewhere along the line have lost it.

    I have an 1849 edition of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs by the Rev. Isaac Watts. D.D. Many of these are metrical versions of psalms, or paraphrases of the same.

    Most are likely aware that the Scottish hymnals consist mostly of metrical psalms or psalm paraphrases by a variety of writers.
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