Louis Bourgeois

Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510–1561) was a French composer, music theorist, cantor, and one of the principal musicians associated with the Genevan Psalter. He worked in Geneva during the period of John Calvin's ministry and served as cantor and master of choristers at St. Pierre and St. Gervais. His responsibilities included helping congregations learn the developing repertory of metrical psalm tunes.

Bourgeois made major contributions to the 1551 Genevan psalter, supplying new melodies and revising existing ones. He also published harmonizations of psalm tunes and a treatise on singing and sight-reading. The precise authorship of individual Genevan melodies can sometimes be difficult to establish, but modern hymnological authorities commonly attribute ST. MICHAEL to Bourgeois. The tune, also known in some hymnals as OLD 134TH, has long outlived its original psalm setting and has been paired with many short-meter hymn texts, including R. B. Y. Scott's “O Day of God, Draw Nigh.”