Old 100th - in Other Works

In Other Works

• Voluntary on the Old Hundredth - also called The 100th Psalm tune. Set as a Lesson. This is an organ piece using the psalm tune as a theme, not unlike a chorale prelude, and was meant for church use. Authorship is somewhat dubious, the piece was either written by John Blow or his student Henry Purcell.
• Bach's chorale cantata Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, BWV 130 is based on the hymn by Paul Eber, sung to the tune.
• Hubert Parry's - Three Chorale Fantasias is based on the Old 100th.
• Virgil Thomson - quoted in several movements of his score for The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936).
• Paul Hindemith - quoted in his Trauermusik (January 1936).
• Benjamin Britten - 1948 cantata St Nicolas
• David Maslanka - Symphony No. 4
• Frank Ticheli - Angels in the Architecture
• Felix Mendelssohn - Piano Trio in C minor Op 66, 4th movement Finale
• Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Old 100th Psalm Tune ("All people that on earth do dwell")

The name of the tune, Old Hundredth is also the title of a short Science fiction story by Brian Aldiss, in which the human race have evolved the ability to transcend their physical bodies and exist as music and energy, thus attaining peace and simplicity. The story ends when the protagonist, one of a number of intelligent and evolving animals who seek to emulate Humanity's example, after being forced into committing a violent act which is against her ethical code. She thus seeks redemption in an afterlife, much as the words of the original Psalm 134 suggest.