Surprisingly, I haven't been able to find any of that out - but I did come across a very lovely recording of the antiphon from Anonymous 4; here's the .ram file. It's not the Liber Usualis version, exactly - the tune is slightly different, and probably a regional variation.
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:
It's a beautiful song, isn't it?
I imagine I need to get some access to some (online?) manuscript libraries to find out the things I want to know about this antiphon; all that stuff is outside the area of general interest, I guess. Well, that will be fun, too.
2 comments:
Yes, it is beautiful. What has your experience been with local variation in texts/melodies? I just noticed that the melody of the Salve Regina, for example, on the Solesmes recording Vespers and Compline differs in a few places from the 1960 edition of the Roman Breviary.
There is lots and lots of variation; see the other post for a link demonstrating one example - a Great "O" Antiphon whose tune had become almost unrecognizable, in fact....
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