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Antiphons for the Benedicite at Lauds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Ruth Steiner
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Extract

The Canticle of the Three Children is the hymn sung by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were cast into the fiery furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar. The episode is described in Daniel 3; but the canticle itself is not present in either Hebrew or Aramaic in the canonical form of the Jewish Scriptures. It was, however, present in the form of the Jewish scriptures from which the Septuagint and later the Vulgate were translated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society , Volume 7 , January 1984 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
© The Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 1984

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References

Notes

[1] Moore, Carey A.: Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions, The Anchor Bible, XLIV (Garden City, N.Y., 1977), pp.39–76 Google Scholar.

[2] In A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (2nd edn., Oxford, 1961), Wellesz, Egon demonstrates this through an example that is truly unforgettable: the Resurrection Kanon (the ‘Golden Kanon’ or ‘Queen of Kanons’) of John Damascene (pp.206–222)Google Scholar.

[3] [Hesbert, R.-J.:] ‘La tradition bénéventaine dans la tradition manuscrite’, Paléographie Musicale XIV (Solesmes, 1931), pp.223–4Google Scholar. See also my contribution to International Musicological Society: Report of the Thirteenth Congress (Strasbourg, 1982)Google Scholar (forthcoming); and ‘The Canticle of the Three Children as a Chant of the Roman Mass’, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Neue Folge, 2 (1982), pp.81–90 Google Scholar.

[4] For an outline of the service, see ‘Lauds’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S. (London, 1980), vol.10, pp.544–5Google Scholar. In an alternative system of terminology for the services of the Divine Office, Matins is called Vigils (or Nocturns), and Lauds is called Matins. See Taft, Robert: ‘Quaestiones disputatae in the history of the Liturgy of the Hours: the origins of Nocturns, Matins, Prime’, Worship 58 (1984), pp.130–158 Google Scholar. An important new book on the Divine Office by Father Taft is scheduled for publication in 1986; I thank him for making a copy of the typescript available to me for consultation.

[5] Moore, op.cit. (note 1), pp.42, 75.

[6] Hesbert, René-Jean: Corpus Antiphonalium Officii (6 vols., Rome, 1963–1979)Google Scholar. Antiphon texts are printed in full in volume III; in order to determine whether or not an antiphon is meant to introduce the Benedicite one must find where it appears in the various sources by reading through the rubrics and the chant incipits in volumes I and II. In this article, the numbers in square brackets accompanying antiphon incipits are those assigned to them in Hesbert's edition.

[7] Rhymed offices are edited in Analecta Hymnica, ed. Dreves, G.M. and Blume, C. (Leipzig, 1886–1922), vols. 5, 13, 17–18, 24–26, 28 and 45Google Scholar. An office for St.Elizabeth contains the following antiphon for the Benedicite:

Benedicta vidua,

Cuius laus assidua

Laudi confert hominum,

Benedicit Dominum. (AH 24, 263)

An antiphon in an office for St.Sabina reads:

Quanta tribus pueris ignes

tribuere camini,

Tanta tibi miseri tormenta

dedere tyranni. (AH 24, 276)

Marcy J. Epstein found that in an office for St.Louis each antiphon in Matins and Lauds was “shaped to fit its particular psalm by the textual devices of paraphrase or thematic continuity”; see her article ‘ Ludovicus decus regnantium: Perspectives on the rhymed office’, Speculum 53 (1978), p.289 Google Scholar. The antiphon for the Benedicite in that office is:

Benedixit creatorem

In suis operibus

Ludovicus grens morem

Datum coeli civibus. (AH 13, 187)

[8] The Medieval Magnificat Antiphons for the Sunday and Ferial Office (M.A. Thesis, Catholic University of America, 1979 Google Scholar; see also her article ‘The Magnificat Antiphons for the Ferial Office’, Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society, 3 (1980), pp.1–25 Google Scholar.

[9] Vol.I, pp.238, 376–7; vol.II, pp.727, 744, 748, 756. See also Lipphardt, Walther: Der Karolingische Tonar von Metz, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 43 (Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster Westfalen, 1965), pp.183–5Google Scholar. Lipphardt suggests that these antiphon series are “possibly relics of the time when it was not yet customary to sing gospel-antiphons to the Cantica”.

[10] Mary, Mother and Ware, Kallistos: The Festal Menaion (London, 1969), p.215 Google Scholar; the same hirmos also appears in the eighth ode of a kanon for the Synaxis of John the Baptist (p.400).

[11] P.424.

[12] For full identification of each of the manuscripts to which reference is made in this article, see Table II and Appendix II.

[13] In his introduction to the revised edition of Paléographie Musicale, sér.2, vol.I (Berne, 1970)Google Scholar, Dom Jacques Froger refrains from identifying as that of Hartker the hand that inserted the letters specifying mode and differentia for antiphons. He does say that for all but the last five antiphons of the series, the letters are written “in a small and graceful hand of the 11th century, closely related to that of Hartker” (p.51*).

[14] See for example Hughes, David: A History of European Music (New York, 1974), p.33 Google Scholar.

[15] See Levy, Kenneth: ‘Trisagion’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S. (london, 1980), vol.19, p.153 Google Scholar. The Trisagion is quoted in some antiphons studied by Roederer, Charlotte in her doctoral dissertation: Eleventh-Century Aquitanian Chant: Studies Relating to a Local Repertory of Processional Antiphons (Yale University, 1971), vol.I, pp.129–139, vol.II, pp.55–6Google Scholar.

[16] See Huglo, M.: ‘Gallican Rite, Music of the’, The New Grove Dictionary, vol.7, p.118 Google Scholar; and Quasten, J.: ‘Gallican Rites’, The New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967), vol.6, pp.258–262 Google Scholar. Lipphardt, op.cit. (see note 9 above), p.185, expresses the view that the series of antiphons for the Benedicite, along with those for the Benedictus Dominus Deus Israhel and the Magnificat, were substantially earlier than the Metz antiphonal of the middle of the 9th century. He continues by offering the suggestion: “Perhaps they belong to a layer common to Milan and the Gallican liturgy.”

[17] Huglo, M.: ‘Antiphon’, The New Grove Dictionary, vol.1, p.477 Google Scholar; Claire, Dom Jean: ‘The Tonus Peregrinus – a question well put?’, Orbis Musicae: Studies in Musicology 7 (1979–1980), pp.3–14 Google Scholar.

[18] Ponte, Joseph P. III: The Musica Disciplina of Aurelianus Reomensis (3 vols., Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1961 Google Scholar; University Microfilms order no. 62–1207), vol.II pp.135–6, vol.III p.149. See also Gushee, Lawrence A.: Aureliani Reomensis Musica Disciplina, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 21 (American Institute of Musicology, Dallas, texas, 1975), pp.109–110 Google Scholar.

[19] Rabanus Erbacher has observed that Aurelian's text “allows of quite contradictory interpretations”; see Tonus Peregrinus: Aus der Geschichte eines Psalmtons, Münsterschwarzacher Studien, Bd.12 (Münsterschwarzach, 1971), p.5 Google Scholar Chapter 4 of this work is entitled ‘Alter und Herkunft des Tonus Peregrinus’: in it Erbacher painstakingly reviews the theories concerning these matters advanced by a number of different scholars.

[20] Aurelian of Réome: The Discipline of Music, translated by Ponte, Joseph (Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1968), p.41 Google Scholar.

[21] Russell, Carlton T.: The Southern French Tonary in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1966; University Microfilms order no. 67–9182), pp.76–80, 150, 190 Google Scholar.

[22] Ed. H.H. Eggebrecht (Wiesbaden, in progress).

[23] Erbacher, op.cit. (see note 19), p.15, n.56) refers to an article by Lipphardt, Walther: ‘Die Antiphonen der Sonntagsvesper in der altromischen Liturgie’, Der kultische Gesang der abendlandischen Kirche, ed. Tack, Franz (Cologne, 1950), pp.53–63 Google Scholar. Lipphardt there identifies Domus Jacob de populo barbaro [2427] as the original antiphon for Ps.113: “Here too it is not the antiphon Nos qui vivimus which displays the ‘oldest’ form, but an antiphon which is frequently encountered in this place in the medieval tradition … It comes from the second half of v.I of Ps.113 and has the remarkable text: “Domus Jacob de populo barbaro”.” (P.55)

[24] In Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, III: Gregorianische Formenlehre (Leipzig, 1921), p.112 Google Scholar, Peter Wagner pointed out the similarity in structure between the tonus peregrinus and the formula for verses of responsories of mode 1. He held back from expressing a view on the significance of this: “Whether this provides a clue for the explanation of its origin is something I should not care to decide.”

[25] Op.cit. (see note 19).

[26] These have been incorporated, in one form or another, into certain facsimiles. In identifying the modal classification of antiphons in the Sarum antiphonal, W.H. Frere found six antiphons with which the tonus peregrinus was to be combined. Three of them are Nos qui vivimus (to which is joined Ps.113), Martyres Domini and Angeli Domini (these introduce the Benedicite). The other three antiphons, which are not set to the Nos qui vivimus melody, and the canticles they introduce are as follows: Cum venerit Paraclytus (for the Benedictus of Lauds), Da pacem (for the Magnificat), and Sapientia clamitat (also for the Magnificat). (See Frere, 's index to Antiphonale Sarisburiense, London, 1901–1924, repr. Farnborough, 1966, vol.I, pp.83–94 Google Scholar.) The antiphonal of Worcester, Cathedral Library, F.160 is presented in facsimile in Paléographie Musicale vol.XI; I find nothing there to indicate that the tonus peregrinus was known at Worcester. In Lucca, Bibl. cap., 601, of which there is a facsimile in Paléographie Musicale vol.IX, two of the antiphons set to the Nos qui vivimus melody appear – Martyres Domini and Angeli Domini. They end on E and are assigned to the second differentia of the 4th tone. Once again, it appears that the tonus peregrinus is simply unknown.