'The Worcester Fragments'

Yesterday at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, part of the mass was taken from the "Worcester Fragments":

The setting of Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei comes from the Worcester fragments. Dating from the late thirteenth century and early fourteenth century, the fragments are among the most priceless pieces of late medieval English polyphony.

Here's a page at Oxford with photos of "15 original leaves of 'The Worcester Fragments' (from manuscripts of polyphonic music, in Latin), recovered from late-medieval bindings of Worcester Cathedral Priory, now at the Bodleian. England, Worcester; Late 13th - early 14th cent."

I believe I am allowed under the terms of their copyright policy to point to images on their server (although I am not allowed to download and post them myself). So I will do that. Here is an image labeled "ol. 12r (formerly 11r, and LXXXIIIr in the medieval foliation) (a) 'Amor patris presentatur' (Mot) (b) 'Munda Maria mater militie' (Mot)":





Here's one labeled "fol. 16v (formerly 15v) 'Kyrie fons pietatis' (Tr or Mot only)":





I don't think there are any of the three pieces sung yesterday online, but reference is made at the site to other fragments.

To get an idea of how this music sounds, here's an mp3 sample of a piece entitled "Beata Víscera," from the website of the Introitus Ensemble. Here's an mp3 of "Salve Sancta Parens." There is also an entire page of samples at this page, a CD put out by the Orlando Consort, consisting entirely of pieces from the Worcester Fragments; the Sanctus is there, and it's quite beautiful. And here is a CD offered at Amazon.com: "Alleluia Nativitas: Medieval Christmas," where you will find some of the same pieces; many of them are apparently specifically for singing at Christmastide.

Here's the Wikipedia page about this:

The Worcester Fragments are a collection of medieval music associated with the English town of Worcester.

The Worcester Fragments comprise 25 short pieces of vocal music. They are referred to as "fragments" because they do not exist in one unified manuscript but have been reassembled from sheets used as book-binding material in later centuries. These old materials had themselves at some stage been bundled together into several collections of flyleaves and saved in various books which had historical connections with Worcester. Once it was recognised that these scattered fragments came from the same source it was possible to piece them together, though much remained missing.

The pieces are from the 13th century. None of them is longer than 5 minutes, some as little as 1 minute long. They demonstrate a variety of musical forms from the period, including the conductus and motet.

Here's a page at "Findarticles" called "The cohesion of the Worcester fragments".

A bit outside the topic of "chant," but interesting and worth posting, I thought.

Hymns of the Breviary and Missal

MusicaSacra again comes through, with a link to a PDF of "Britt’s Hymns of the Breviary and Missal." (That second link is the PDF file itself, which is 26M in size. You can right-click and save to your desktop, but it will take awhile.)

This wonderful 1922 book, edited by Fr. Matthew Britt, assembles a vast number of hymns from Christian history, in Latin with English translations, including notes on composer and authors as well as liturgical use. It is an essential book for all Catholic musicians. It is newly available in print and also online.

It lists all the hymns as they are sung:

• "The Hymns of the Psalter," a section that lists the hymns sung at each Office.


• "The Proper of Seasons," that lists the hymns for various Holy Days and Seasons.


• "The Proper of Saints" lists all the hymns for various major Saints' days.


• "The Common of Saints" lists hymns to be used for others celebrated in song.


• There is also information following each hymn as to its origin, as well as some explication of meaning and/or theology.


• There are also entire sections dedicated to Hymn Authors and Translators.


• There's quite a bit of good stuff in the Intro, too, about meter and etc.

This is a wonderful find! It's a very complete resource - except that there's no music, unfortunately.

Well, that's what Seeqpod and I are for, I reckon....

Hodie Christus Natus Est

Hodie Christus Natus Est - "Today Christ Is Born" - is the antiphon upon Magnificat at Vespers of Christmas Day.

Hodie Christus natus est:
Hodie Salvator apparuit:
Hodie in terra canunt Angeli,
laetantur Archangeli
Hodie exsultant justi, dicentes:
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Alleluia.

Today Christ is born:
Today the Savior appeared:
Today on Earth the Angels sing,
Archangels rejoice:
Today the righteous rejoice, saying:
Glory to God in the highest.
Alleluia.

Here's the chant score from the Liber Usualis:




Listen to the mp3, from the Monks of Brazil. Here's another mp3 - a polyphonic, arranged version of the chant, from "The Antifonale book of Bygdeå" (Sweden) (PDF - in Swedish - about this Antiphonal here). I like it a lot.

O Virgo Virginum

The medieval breviary in the Sarum use (but not in the Roman) prescribed the antiphon "O Virgo Virginum" as antiphon upon the Magnificat for December 23:

O Virgin of Virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That which ye behold is a divine mystery.

Here's an interesting thing, though! In previous years, I've created the chant score from another of the "O"s, pointing out the words as I could only imagine it was done. But I remembered I'd once seen the chant score on another site (and I think posted it here at some point) - and I found it again this year. It's here, on a page devoted to Mary at the website of the University of Dayton (which lives at the website of a group called The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute ); the source is given as "From Processionale Praemonstratensis, 1932."

Here's something from that page:

Most authors agree that there were seven original 'O Antiphons' and that they are a very ancient expression of Christian Prayer. While their author is unknown, they are cited in at least two works as early as the eighth century. Both Cynewulf, an Anglo-Saxon author, and Amalarius, a liturgist and the Archbishop of Trier (d. 850), who was a student of the teacher Alcuin, cite the existence of the 'O Antiphons' as early as the seventh/eighth century.

The 'O Antiphons' get their name from the fact that they all begin with the interjection 'O': O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Adonai (Lord); O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse); O Clavis David (Key of David); O Oriens (Dawn of the East); O Rex Gentium (King of Gentiles); O Emmanuel.

While the original 'O Antiphons' numbered seven, over time a number of others were added to the liturgy of particular regions, and sometimes for particular religious feast days which fell during Advent, or even in the liturgy of some medieval religious orders. Some medieval religious churches had as many as twelve O Antiphons which were sung in the Advent Liturgy leading up to Christmas Eve.

Among these, there was an important Marian 'O Antiphon' which appears in both the Gallican (France) and Saerum (England) liturgies. Although it is difficult to establish just when this antiphon was first introduced, it was certainly known in the Middle Ages.

This Marian Antiphon is still used today in the liturgy of the Norbertine Order. While the Latin Liturgy begins the O Antiphons on December 17 with 'O Sapientia,' and ends on December 23 with 'O Emmanuel,' the Liturgy of the Norbertine Order beings their O Antiphons on December 16 with 'O Sapientia,' and ends on December 23 with the beautiful Marian Antiphon 'O Virgo Virginum.'

So, a little more history. No sound file for this one, because the only group I know of that still sings this (aside from the aforementioned Norbertine Order - about which of course I will have to do some research!) are Anglican/Episcopal religious - and they are a rare species indeed. I'll post what I learn about the Norbertines - and also whatever I find out about the Processionale Praemonstratensis.

Here's the English-language score to "O Virgin of Virgins," though; the words are very beautiful. And now can sing it yourself, tonight!

O Emmanuel

December 22:

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, Desire of all nations and their Salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

From the Blackfriars. Other audio files here and here.

Here again is the "O Antiphon" page at Full Homely Divinity; here's an article about The Hymns of Advent; here's one about the Advent Saints.

Here's the English-language score:

O Rex Gentium

December 21:

O King of Nations, and their Desire; the Cornerstone, who makest both one: Come and save mankind, whom thou formedst of clay.

From the Blackfriars. I like this version, too, which is the only one I've found online in English. It's from the CD St. Johns Choir - Gregorian Chant: The Office of Compline, sung by the Choir of St. John the Evangelist in Ottawa. The first section is the antiphon itself; the second is a very pretty composition based on it.

Today is the feast of St. Thomas, though, so this antiphon is not sung as usual, as antiphon upon the Magnificat. It may appear elsewhere in Vespers, though.

You can listen to the Musica Sacra version here via this post, or find the audio file at Fisheaters, here.

Here's the English-language score:

O Oriens

December 20:

O Day-Spring, Brightness of the Light everlasting, and Sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

From the Blackfriars. Still my best-loved antiphon, I think, and this is still my favorite version, from Boston Camerata. Here's the Musica Sacra mp3, with Magnificat; that's the way these are really sung, so it's good to hear it complete. I'm going to go sing it in person myself.

Here's a pretty interesting article about the Great "O"s, written, obviously, by another enthusiast. More about other, regional and "lesser," "O" antiphons there, including O Mundi Domina.

Here's the English-language chant score:

O Clavis David

December 19:

O Key of David, Scepter of the house of Israel; that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth: come, and bring forth from the prisionhouse the captive, who sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.

From the Blackfriars. Here's the Musica Sacra mp3, with Magnificat. Wikipedia now seems to have an extensive page on the antiphons, including this link at the bottom of the page to some Flash movies and a follow-the-bouncing-ball sort of presentation (that crashed my browser, BTW).

Here's something interesting at Wikipedia that I hadn't known about: two "Antiphons on the Benedictus":

Accompanying the O Antiphons are two Antiphons said at Lauds, on December 21 and 23, also relating to the theme of the upcoming birth of Christ. The first, due to the feast of St Thomas falling on December 21, is traditionally used instead in the commemoration of the feria. With the transference of this feast to July 3 in the revised calendar, these are again used in the Liturgy of the Hours as antiphons. The Monday through Saturday which fall on the days of the O Antiphons also have their own antiphons for the psalms of Lauds, rather than repeating the antiphons of the previous Sunday, as is otherwise done in Advent.

December 21:

Nolite timere: quinta enim die veniet ad vos Dominus noster.

Fear not, for on the fifth day our Lord will come to you.

December 23:

Ecce completa sunt omnia, quae dicta sunt per Angelum de Virgine Maria.

Behold, all things are fulfilled, which were spoken by the Angel to the Virgin Mary.

Here's the English version of the chant score of "O Clavis David":

O Radix Jesse

December 18:

O Root of Jesse, which standest for an ensign of the people, at whom kings shall stop their mouths, whom the Gentiles shall seek: Come and deliver us, and tarry not.

From the Blackfriars. You can listen to the antiphon sung on each side of Magnificat, as it really is sung, here via this mp3 file at this post at Musica Sacra, where 7 of the antiphons are posted together.

And here's the chant score to the antiphon in English:

O Adonai

The antiphon upon Magnificat for December 17: O Adonai.

O Adonai and Leader of the house of Israel, who appearedst in the Bush of Moses in a flame of fire, and gavest him the law in Sinai: Come and deliver us with an outstretched arm.

From the Blackfriars. Here's another audio file, an mp3, found at the website of the Pontifical North American College. Here is a short sample clip of Arvo Pärt's O Adonai.

Here's an English-language chant score:

O Sapientia

Starting tonight, Anglican monastics, and others, will sing the Great "O" Antiphons as the antiphons upon the Magnificat at Vespers, for a period of eight days. (Roman Catholics start one day later and use only 7 of the Antiphons.) These antiphons are quite ancient - from earlier than the 9th Century, it's reckoned. They were composed of snippets of Scripture (from various sources, most prominently Isaiah) that, in keeping with the Advent themes of hopeful longing and expectation, become lovely poetic descriptions of hope for the Messiah, and pointers to the Incarnation. See Derek's piece at Episcopal Cafe for a detailed discussion of these antiphons and their place in English history. This is also an excellent reference page, one that includes Biblical sources for the texts.

The first antiphon is "O Sapientia" - "O Wisdom":

O Wisdom, which camest out of the mouth of the most High, and reachest from one end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Here is the Latin version sung by Blackfriars, "the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford," sounding as it would at Vespers:



Other mp3 files of this antiphon are here from WDTPRS (a solo version), and here from Magdalen College. (For something very different, have a listen to a sample of Arvo Pärt's version, O Weisheit, sung in German by the Paul Hillier ensemble.)

Here is an English-language chant score:






I must disagree, however, with the references cited at the link above for this particular antiphon; the citations from Isaiah really are not sources for the images used and ideas expressed here. But Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24 is:

1 Wisdom shall praise her own self, and shall be honoured in God, and shall glory in the midst of her people,
2 And shall open her mouth in the churches of the most High, and shall glorify herself in the sight of his power,
3 And in the midst of her own people she shall be exalted, and shall be admired in the holy assembly.
4 And in the multitude of the elect she shall have praise, and among the blessed she shall be blessed, saying:
5 I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures:

6 I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth, and as a cloud I covered all the earth:
7 I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud.
8 I alone have compassed the circuit of heaven, and have penetrated into the bottom of the deep, and have walked in the waves of the sea,
9 And have stood in all the earth: and in every people,
10 And in every nation I have had the chief rule:

11 And by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low: and in all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord.
12 Then the creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and he that made me, rested in my tabernacle,
13 And he said to me: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in Israel, and take root in my elect.
14 From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling place I have ministered before him.

More Chant Software

Here's the history of Gregorio:

The Gregorio project was born in 2006 in ENST Bretagne, a graduate engineering school in France. It was at the beginning a student project of six months, supervised by Mr Yannis Haralambous, developer of Omega. Only Élie Roux decided to continue the project and to develop it under GPL.

At the beginning, the goal of the project was to create a graphical interface to the monks of the abbey Sainte Madeleine du Barroux so that they could use a gregorian font. This font, Gregoria, is a professional OpenType font designed by Elena Albertoni, a typographer and graphic designer. Finally, for licence issues, it has been decided that the project will have its own font called gregorio.

At the end of 2006 year, a new developer, Olivier Berten joins the project and creates the OpusTeX part. In April 2007, Gregorio reached a certain maturity and can start to be used, at least its command line interface, as a preprocessor for OpusTeX. A project has been created on gna.org.

This site was set online in April 2007 with a design by Patrick Roux and has been corrected and improved by Nicolas Aupetit. The autotools support and modularization of the code is made by Jérémie Corbier since April 2007 too.

From this page, which includes download instructions:

The gregorio software is able to read the formats gabc and GregorioXML, and to write those two formats as well as OpusTeX. For now it can only be a powerful preprocessor for writing scores in OpusTeX.

This software is only available (for the moment) on GNU systems (like GNU/Linux). Porting it under Windows would probably be easy. If you want to try, please contact the gregorio developers.

Open-source, of course. Sounds like they want eventually to create a simple GUI for this, too - and looks like they might like volunteers, if anybody's interested.

MusicaSacra's new discussion forum

Is here. Here's the announcement, from November 28:

Finally, we have a forum. This is a great venue for asking questions and providing answers. Less than one week old, it is already taking off as a highly useful and well trafficked application. Enjoy!

Some random current topics: "Introductions to Gregorian Chant," "A 40 voice Mass!," "Polyphony: 20th-21st Centuries, Noteworthy Motets," and "Ordinary for Advent Sundays."

For instance....

The "Links" section of the Cantus Planus website sent me to the Gregorian Chant site at Princeton (which I already knew about, but which I haven't visited in a long while).

That site sent me to the website Cantus, at the University of Western Ontario. And there I went to the Search page, and entered "O mundi domina" in the search box.

I got back at least 40 results, several of which sent me to pages with photgraphs like this one:






And that, my friends, is obviously a very old chant book. And there, right in front of our eyes, are the little-known medieval "O" antiphons - "O Gabriel," "O Rex Pacifice," "O Ierusalem," along with the first few opening notes of "O Mundi Domina" - I mentioned just one post ago.

Here's a different "O mundi domina," in the older musical notation:






In a different vein, here's another link: Office chant books from the Cathedral Church Augsburg, found on a German site. Here is a page of Responsory verses from that Cathedral.




Wonderful stuff out there these days - and how great that it is available to all!

Cantus Planus

Here's another amazing internet find: Cantus Planus: Welcome to Regensburg´s data pool for research on Gregorian chant.

The following files are made available in accordance with the aims of the IMS Study Group Cantus Planus, which include the exchange of data in electronic form. They have been made as accurate as possible, but they have not in all cases been checked as rigorously as would be necessary for a traditional publication. They are rather in the nature of raw data which, it is hoped, will be useful for future chant research.

Click on the links below to download or view the data on screen or search the databases.

The "links below" included "Datafiles (read or download)"; "Databases (interactive)"; "Links"; "IMS Study Group"; "Antiphonaria (RSIM)"; and "Impressum." I've already been to that "Antiphonaria," which looks quite amazing. And the "Interactive Databases" link took me to a page from which I could find out about "Responsories for Advent," among other things.

I think I'll be able to find out something more about "O Mundi Domina" here, because I was sent to a broken link from a Google search, and eventually found the new site.

O Mundi Domina

An interesting find! This is another "O" Antiphon; it's sung on Christmas Eve - a day later than "O Virgo Virginum" (the English antiphon of December 23rd) or "O Emmanuel" (the Roman one), and it comes from medieval Hungary. You can hear an mp3 here, linked from this page. (Or you can listen to a better, clearer version of the antiphon here from Amazon.com; click #4 - or, better still, listen to them all.)

Here's the Latin, followed by the English:

O mundi domina regio ex semine orta
ex tuo iam Christus processit alvo tamquam sponsus de thalamo
hic iacet in praesepio qui et sidera regit.

O Lady of the World, sprung of Royal Race,
now hath Christ come forth from thy womb as a bridegroom from his chamber:
Here lieth he in the crib who ruleth the stars.

That page also mentions two other "O" antiphons - "O rex pacifice," and "O Ierusalem" - that it says were used in medieval times. The Anonymous 4 website says that:

The Office antiphon O mundi domina, for Christmas Eve, uses the same tune as the other great “O” antiphons of Advent, but with a text found only in Hungary.

It's the "same tune" only in a manner of speaking; obviously it's an alternate version of the tune we know - but you can definitely hear it. An excellent example, I'd say, of regional variation that has given rise to something that sounds quite different.

We sang the antiphon this week in rehearsal - with nobody catching on that this is related to the Great "O"s, which we just sang! - and we'll be singing it, quite by coincidence, I think, on the 23rd. Perfect timing! I have the chant written out in modern musical notation and will post it at some point, once I scan or photograph it.

There are quite a few collections of medieval Hungarian Christmas chant music out there, it seems. There must be something particularly notable about this - or perhaps the texts were especially well-preserved or abundant for some reason?

Taking a (very brief) extra-Advent moment to discuss the Proclamation of Christmas

Fear not; this will just be a short detour out of the season.

After listening to the "Proclamation of Christmas" sound file from the Regina Laudis "The Announcement of Christmas" CD I went (naturally) on a hunt for the Latin text so I could match up the mp3 with the words.

I found it, side-by-side with the English version, at the "Customs of Christmas" page at Fisheaters (a really great little informational site, from - it seems - a lay Catholic perspective):

The Eighth of the Calends of January

The year from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created heaven and earth, five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine:

From the deluge, the year two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven:

From the birth of Abraham, the year two thousand and fifteen:

From Moses and the going out of the people of Israel from Egypt, the year one thousand five hundred and ten:

From David's being anointed king, the year one thousand and thirty-two:

In the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel:

In the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad:

From the building of the city of Rome, the year seven hundred and fifty-two:

In the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus:

The whole world being in peace:

In the sixth age of the world: Jesus Christ, the eternal God, and Son of the eternal Father, wishing to consecrate this world by his most merciful coming, being conceived of the Holy Ghost, and nine months since his conception having passed, In Bethlehem of Juda is born of the Virgin Mary, being made Man:

THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE FLESH!

Octavo Kalendas Januarii

Anno a creatione mundi, quando in principio Deus creavit coelum et terram, quinquies millesimo centesimo nonagesimo nono:

A diluvio vero, anno bis millesimo nongentesimo quinquagesimo septimo:

A nativitate Abrahae, anno bis millesimo quintodecimo:

A Moyse et egressu populi Israel de Aegypto, anno millesimo quingentesimo decimo:

Ab unctione David in regem, anno millesimo trigesimo secundo:

Hebdomoda sexagesima quinta juxta Danielis prophetiam:

Olympiade centesima nongentesima quarta:

Ab urbe Roma condita, anno septingentesimo quinquagesimo secundo:

Anno imperii Octaviani Augusti quadragesimo secundo:

toto urbe in pace composito,

sexta mundi aetate, Jesus Christus aeternus Deus, aeternique Patris Filius, mundum volens adventu suo piisimo consecrare, de Spiritu Sancto conceptus, novemque post conceptionem decursus mensibus, in Bethlehem Judae nascitur ex Maria Virgine factus homo:

NATIVITAS DOMINI NOSTRI JESU CHRISTI SECUNDUM CARNEM!

Here is a PDF of the chant in modern musical notation and language, found at the U.S. Catholic Bishops website. They have, BTW, edited the "creation of the world" language; it now reads:

"Today, the twenty-fifth day of December, unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth and then formed man and woman in his own image....

Which is a good thing, I'd say. Heh. The sisters are singing the other version, though, with the exact counting of years. Sometimes Tradition gets a little bit in the way, don't you think? "Unknown ages" is a much more beautiful and mystical idea, and evokes the immensity and majesty of God in a much more powerful way, too.

Well, anyway. Now (hurriedly) back to our regularly-scheduled celebration of Advent.

The Armor of Light

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

And the year begins again. I was very tired tonight, and had already been to Lauds and Eucharist in the morning - but went to Vespers anyway because I couldn't stay away; Advent is for me the one irresistible thing.

Believe it or not, I cannot find a complete mp3 recording of the Advent Vespers hymn, Conditor Alme Siderum - either in English or in Latin - anywhere online. Which is quite amazing, when you think about it; it's one of the most well-known, and certainly the most popular, of all the Office Hymns.

But here is a new recording by the Sisters of the Abbey of Regina Laudis called "Women in Chant: The Announcement of Christmas (CD)," which has an almost complete Latin version; here's a RAM file, the hymn sung the way it would be in choir (the way I just heard it!). Here's the TPL listing.

Conditor alme siderum,
aeterna lux credentium,
Christe, redemptor omnium,
exaudi preces supplicum.

Qui condolens interitu
mortis perire saeculum,
salvasti mundum languidum,
donans reis remedium.

Vergente mundi vespere,
uti sponsus de thalamo,
egressus honestissima
Virginis matris clausula.

Cuius forti potentiae
genu curvantur omnia;
caelestia, terrestria
nutu fatentur subdita.

Te, Sancte, fide quaesumus,
venture iudex saeculi,
conserva nos in tempore
hostis a telo perfidi.

Sit, Christe, rex piissime,
tibi Patrique gloria
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula.

That CD might get on my list to purchase; there's what looks to be a quite beautiful version of the Proclamation of Christmas on it, something you don't get to hear every day.