A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Franc, Guillaume

by George Arthur Crawford

FRANC, or LE FRANC, Guillaume, the son of Pierre Franc of Rouen, was probably one of the French Protestants who fled to Geneva as an asylum from the persecution to which those who embraced the doctrines of the reformation were then exposed. He settled in that city in 1541, shortly before the return of Calvin from Strasburg, and obtained a licence to establish a school of music. In 1542 he became master of the children and a singer at St. Peter's at a salary of 10 florins. In 1543 the Council of Geneva resolved that 'whereas the Psalms of David are being completed,^[1] and whereas it is very necessary to compose a pleasing melody to them, and Master Guillaume the singer is very fit to teach the children, he shall give them instruction for an hour daily.' His pay was increased from 10 to 50 florins, and afterwards raised to 100, with the use of part of a house, but on the refusal of the Council to grant a further addition to his salary Franc left Geneva in 1545 and joined the choir of the Cathedral of Lausanne, where he remained until his death about the beginning of June, 1570.

Franc's name is chiefly known in connection with the Psalter published at Geneva by Calvin for the use of the Reformed Churches. The first edition of this celebrated work appeared in 1542, containing 35 psalms, and was enlarged from time to time until its completion in 1562. Of this Psalter Franc has been generally believed to be the musical editor; but recent researches, especially those of M. O. Douen, show the claim set up for him to be devoid of foundation. [See Bourgeois, vol. iv. p. 557.] He certainly had nothing to do with the Psalter after leaving Geneva in 1545, and although the resolution of the Council quoted above may appear to indicate an intention of employing him to adapt melodies to some of the psalms then newly translated by Marot, there is no evidence that this intention was ever carried into effect.

Franc, however, did edit a Psalter. The church of Lausanne had on several occasions shown a spirit of independence of that of Geneva, and at the time of Franc's arrival sang the psalms to melodies by Gindron, a canon of the cathedral, which differed from those in use at Geneva. As early as 1552 Franc appears to have been engaged on a new Psalter, for in that year he obtained a licence to print one at Geneva, there being then no press at Lausanne. No copy of this book, if it was ever published, is known to exist, but the terms of the licence^[2] show that it consisted of the psalms of Marot with their original melodies, and the 34 psalms translated by Beza the year before, to which Franc, probably in rivalry with Bourgeois, had adapted melodies of his own. At any rate, in 1565, three years after the completion of the Genevan Psalter, that of Lausanne appeared, under the following title:—'Les Pseaumes mis en rime françoise par Clement Marot et Theodore de Bèze, auec le chant de l'eglise de Lausane [sic] 1565. Auec privilege, tant du Roy, que de Messieurs de Geneue.'

In the preface Franc disclaims any idea of competition with those 'who had executed their work with great fidelity,' or even of correcting 'what had been so well done by them.' He gives no intimation that he had himself taken any part in that work, and states, with respect to his own book, that in addition to a selection of the best tunes then in use in the church of Lausanne as well as in other Reformed Churches, he had supplied new ones to such of the psalms, then recently translated, as had not yet been set to music, and were consequently sung to the melodies of psalms in the older editions of the Psalter. He adds that his object was that each psalm should have its proper tune and confusion be thereby avoided.

Stress has been laid by some writers who attributed the Genevan melodies to Franc, on a letter written to Bayle by David Constant, professor of theology at Lausanne at the end of the 17th century, in which he states that he had seen a certificate bearing date Nov. 2, 1552, and given by Beza to Franc, in which Beza testifies that it was Franc who had first set the psalms to music. Constant adds that he himself possessed a copy of the psalms in which the name of Franc appeared and which was printed at Geneva under the licence of the magistrates of that city. Baulacre, however, writing in 1745 in the Journal Helvétique, after investigating the accuracy of Constant's statement, shows that the account he sent to Bayle of Beza's letter was erroneous, as that letter contained no reference to the authorship of the melodies. Even had it done so, we have seen above that in that very year Franc had obtained a licence to print a collection of psalms for Lausanne, and the psalter to which Constant refers is that of 1565, also compiled for local use.

In this latter collection 27 melodies are composed or adapted by Franc to the psalms left without them in the Geneva Psalter of 1562, (51^[3], 53, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 82, 95, 98, 100, 108, 109, 111, 116, 127^[3], 139, 140, 142, and 144), nineteen are selected from the tunes previously in use at Lausanne, and the rest are taken from the Genevan Psalter.

Before long, however, Lausanne followed the example of the other Reformed Churches, and the Psalter of Franc was superseded by that of Bourgeois.

Franc's tunes are of small merit, Some specimens of them are given by Douen in his 'Clement Marot et le Psautier Huguenot,' 2 vols. Paris 1878–79, from which the materials for this article are chiefly derived. See also Bovet, 'Histoire du Psautier des églises reformées,' Neuchatel et Paris, 1872; G. Becker, 'La Musique en Suisse,' Genève et Paris, 1874; Riggenbach, 'Der Kirchengesang in Basel'; and six articles by the present writer in the Musical Times, June–November, 1881.

[ G. A. C. ]

1. This refers to the additional variations then being written by Marot.
2. This important document, which has only lately been discovered In the registers of the Council of Geneva, deserves to be quoted in full:— Jeudi 28 iuillet l552. ... Sur ce qui le dit maistre Jacques, ministre de Lausanne, a proposé que à Lausanne ilz ne se sont peult estre d'accord de chanter les pseaulmes changés icy par maistre Loys Bourgois, ny ceulx qu'il a myst en chans du sleur de Beze, ilz sont en propos de faire imprimer les pseaulmes translatez par Marot en leur premier chant, et aussy ceulz qu'a translaté le sieur de Beze en vng chant que y a mis le chantre de Lausanne pour les chanter, ce qu'ilz n'hont ausé faire sans licence. Pourquoy il a requis permettre les imprimer icy. Arreté que, attendu que c'est chose raissonable, il leur soit permys.
3. Both these psalms had proper tunes in the Genevan Psalter, to which Beza's versions of 69 and 117 were respectively sung. Franc retained the Genevan melodies for the later psalms, and adapted distinct tunes to the older ones. Of these tunes, that which Franc set to 51 was its original melody, to which Bourgeois adapted it in 1542, but which he had replaced by another in 1551.