Thursday, December 27, 2012

December 27: The Feast of St. John Evangelist

From Hymn Melodies for the Whole Year from the Sarum Service-Books:
On the Feast of S. John Ev. & on the Octave Day :
Mattins:   Annue Christe (on the day) ...................46
                                     (on the octave day) ...................47
Lauds & Evensong:   Exultet celum laudibus ................... 27
Follow along with the Office for today - including antiphons, hymns, Psalms, Chapter, etc., although no music is provided - at Breviary Offices, from Lauds to Compline Inclusive (Society of St. Margaret, Boston, 1885).   I'll link-in via iFrame to the SSM book at the bottom of the post too.


Below is a video of Annue Christe, the prescribed hymn for Mattins as above, sung to melody #46; the singers chant only the first and last verse of the Latin words given below:





It's a pretty hymn - melismatic and liquid.

Here are the scores for hymns 46 and 47:


CPDL provides the Latin words for the hymn; they write:
Transcribed from the Trent manuscript tr92. The keys, the notes' values and the accidental are as in the manuscript. The time signature is missing; the “tempus perfectum” has been assumed from the context and the perfect notes have been dotted. The text underlay within brackets and that of the Tenor (lowest voice) are editorial, the manuscript has the 1st verse only. The notes' values within the "ligaturæ" are semibreves. The “musica ficta” suggestions are in the MIDI and MusicXML files.

CPDL refers to this piece as "Anonymous - TTB - Sacred, Hymn" - and offers a midi of it.  Clearly, the text was picked up and used in a later composition.
Annue Christe sæculorum Domine,
Nobis per hujus tibi cari(a) merita,
Ut qui te coram graviter deliquimus
Hujus solvamur gloriosis precibus.


Salva Redemptor plasma tuum nobile,
Signatum sancto vultus tui lumine;
Nec lacerari sinas fraude dæmonum
Propter quos mortis exsolvisti pretium.


Noli captivos esse tuos servulos,
Absolve reos, compeditos erige,
Et quos cruore redemisti proprio
Rex bone tecum fac gaudere perpetim.


Sit tibi Jesu benedicte Domine
Gloria, virtus, honor, et imperium,
Una cum Patre, sanctoque Paraclito
Cum quibus regnas Deus ante sæcula.

Here's something from Cyberhymnal's entry on Annue, Christe, including an English translation of the four main verses:
"Words: Un­known au­thor, be­fore the 11th Cen­tu­ry (An­nue Chris­te sae­cu­lor­um Do­mi­ne); trans­lat­ed from La­tin to Eng­lish by Thom­as A. La­cey in The Eng­lish Hymn­al (Lon­don: Ox­ford Un­i­ver­si­ty Press, 1906), num­ber 174."

Lord of creation, bow Thine ear, O Christ, to hear
The intercession of Thy servant true and dear,
That we unworthy, who have trespassed in Thy sight,
May live before Thee where he dwells in glorious light.

O God our Savior, look on Thine inheritance,
Sealed by the favor shining from Thy countenance;
That no false spirit bring to naught the souls of price
Bought by the merit of Thy perfect sacrifice.

We bear the burden of our guilt and enmity,
Until Thy pardon lift the heart from slavery;
Then through the spending of Thy life blood, King of grace,
Grant us unending triumph in Thy holy place.

To Thee the glorious Christ, our Savior manifest,
All wreaths victorious, praise and worship be addressed,
Whom with the living Father humbly we adore,
And the life giving Spirit, God forevermore.
This from Hymnary.org:
Annue Christe saeculorum Domine. [Common of Apostles.] This hymn is of unknown authorship, its full form consists of four general stanzas, and nine stanzas proper of saints.

Translations in common use:—
1. 0 Christ, Thou Lord of worlds, Thine ear. By J. M. Neale. Published in the enlarged edition of the Hymnal Noted, 1854, No. 75, in 4 stanzas of 8 lines, from whence it has passed into a few collections. In the St. Raphael's Collection, 1860, special stanzas were introduced after the Sarum manner (these added stanzas are all original) for SS. Andrew, Thomas, John and James, Matthias, Peter, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Simon and Jude, and some of these were repeated in Skinner's Daily Service Hymnal, 1864, with additional verses for St. Barnabas and for SS. Philip and James, the latter altered from Bp. Wordsworth's hymn on that festival in his Holy Year, "Blest be, 0 Lord, the grace of Love." It is altered in the Hymnary, 1872, to "0 Christ, Thou Lord of all."

-- Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)


 And here's the chant score used at the Community of St. John Baptist (Anglican); it's melody #46 but with a different set of words:



I couldn't find an audio of hymn tune 47 anywhere, though.

Exultet celum laudibus is the hymn prescribed throughout the year for Lauds and 2nd Evensong for Feasts of Apostles & Evangelists - but this tune is only used during Christmastide (which means it's only used on the Feast of St. John Evangelist, since that's the only A&E feast day in Christmastide!).


This is the same tune used for A solis ortus cardine, sung at Lauds & 2nd Evensong on Christmas DayHere's LLPB's mp3 of that song; just sing the English words  below (from Oremus - "Words: Latin, tenth century; trans. Richard Mant, as alt. in The English Hymnal, 1906") instead of the words on the audio file and you're in business.
Let the round world with songs rejoice;
let heaven return the joyful voice;
all mindful of the Apostles' fame,
let heaven and earth their praise proclaim.

Ye servants who once bore the light
of Gospel truth o'er heathen night,
still may your work that light impart,
to glad our eyes and cheer our heart.

O God, by whom to them was given
the key that shuts and opens heaven,
our chains unbind, our loss repair,
and grant us grace to enter there;

for at thy will they preached the word
which cured disease, which health conferred:
O may that healing power once more
our souls to grace and health restore:

that when thy Son again shall come,
and speak the world's unerring doom,
he may with them pronounce us blessed,
and place us in thy endless rest.

To thee, O Father; Son, to thee;
to thee, blessed Spirit, glory be!
So was it ay for ages past,
so shall through endless ages last.
"The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive" - a site I like more and more each time I see it - provides this set of Latin words:
Exultet celum laudibus
Resultet terra gaudiis
Apostolorum gloriam
Sacra canant solemnia

Vos secli iusti iudices
Et vera mundi lumina
Votis precamur, cordium
Audite preces supplicum

Qui celum verbo clauditis
Serrasque eius solvitis
Nos a peccatis omnibus
Solvite iussu, quesumus

Quorum precepto subditur
Salus et languor omnium
Sanate egros moribus
Nos reddentes virtutibus

Ut cum iudex advenerit
Christus in fine seculi
Nos sempiterni gaudii
Faciat esse compotes

Deo Patri sit gloria
Eiusque soli Filio
Cum Spirito paraclito
Et nunc et in perpetuum.
There's a slightly different set of words on page 153 of Britt's Hymns of the Breviary and Missal.

Thie below video of Exultet celum laudibus is for St. Peter & St. Paul; the musical style is not to my taste, although the hymn itself is beautiful.  The words are slightly different here and there, but it's clearly a version of this hymn; the music comes from this CD from Jordi Savilli.




Here's that peek-in to the SSM Breviary for today:




I've always really liked this image of St. John; "Lawrence OP"'s Flickr site says it's "From the east window, designed by Burne Jones and made by Morris & Co. of the pre-Raphaelite school, installed in the then-Unitarian chapel of Manchester College, Oxford.



This one, by Paolo Veronese, isn't bad, either!


The ceiling painting in the sacristy of San Sebastiano, the Coronation of the Virgin, is framed by pictures of the four evangelists sitting, kneeling or reclining, accompanied by their symbols (eagle, ox, lion and angel), and, in their over life-size dimensions, they seem to burst out of the pictorial fields. In the four pictures, the open book is a reference to the subject as writer of the gospel of the same name.

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