Jessie Seymour Irvine


1836 - 1883

Amateur composer, noted for a single tune. Born in Dunnottar (Aberdeenshire), Irvine was the daughter of the parish minister. In the early 1850s she composed the tune Crimond, named after a later charge of her fathers, which has gained international recognition as the usual setting for the 23rd Psalm, The Lord is My Shepherd. This tune first appeared in The Northern Psalter in 1872 but was wrongly ascribed to David Grant, an Aberdeen businessman and amateur musician, whom Irvine had asked to provide a harmonisation.

She died in Aberdeen, where she lies buried in St. Machar's Cathedral.


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