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Musical Settings of Horace's Lyric Poems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
It was with such diffidence as becomes an amateur that I yielded to an invitation to read a paper before the Musical Association. For some three years I have at intervals collected notes of musical settings of Classical—that is to say, Greek and Latin—lyrics, excluding those which occur in the drama. I have paid particular attention to one author—Horace, but even in this instance my notes are in many places defective, partly because I was unable, owing to the war, to consult friends and colleagues abroad, and partly because I had not the leisure to make any systematic attempt to exhaust the sources of information nearer at hand. Hence it is that the chief reason for my reluctance to face this learned audience—my inadequate equipment—became in the end the chief reason for my acceptance of your flattering invitation. By bringing my subject to the notice of musicians I hoped to gather more material, and I shall be grateful to any members of the Association who may add to my store.
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- Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1919
References
∗ The original is entitled “The Widow: Sapphics.” The imitator in The Anti-Jacobin justly remarks that “the pathos of the matter is not a little relieved by the absurdity of the metre”:
Cōld wâs thě nīght wīnd: drîfting fäst thě snöws fěll, &c.
∗ The correct prose stress is scèlèrísque. Flemming's setting is in common time, and the conventional secondary stress on the third beat has been ignored above. Scelerisque occupies one bar, and the secondary stress on the third syllable may be strengthened to equal a principal stress; but the melody still forces a stress on the first syllable.Google Scholar
† The correct prose stress is égèt, which may be represented by strengthening the secondary stress, as before.Google Scholar
∗ I am indebted to Dr. Bannister for my knowledge of the two Vatican manuscripts mentioned in my list. Another Oxford friend, Professor Fiedler, gave me last year a reference to Das Fortlsben der Moralischen Lyrih seit der Renaissance, by E. Stemplinger, Leipzig, 1906. This work contains a short section of five pages on Horazischs Oden in der Musik, which provided me with one or two new names. Besides giving this general sketch—the only one on the subject known to me—Stemplinger's book also reproduces the earliest German settings, in modern notation, and occasionally with some bad mistakes.Google Scholar
∗ My attention was called to this setting by Mr. Charles Sayle, of the University Library, Cambridge.Google Scholar
† The two Basel reprints have quite different music and a different arrangement from the others. The original music is also reproduced at the end of an annotated edition of Virgil's minor poems (Vergiliana opuscula familiariter exposita) printed at Paris in 1501.Google Scholar
∗ See Rudolf Schwartz: Die Frottole im 15 Jakrhundert, in the Vierteljahrsschrift, vol. II. p. 444, and reproduction in R. von Liliencron's article, Die horezischen Metren in deutschen Kompositionen des 16 Jahrhunderts, ibid., vol. III, p. 42.Google Scholar
† Ibid., vol. II. p. 444n.Google Scholar
∗ The title of the first edition—a folio—gives much information, but does not mention Horace: Melopoiæ siue Harmoniæ tetracenticæ super xxii. genera carminum Heroicorū Elegiacorū Lyricorum et ecclesiasticorū kymnorū per Petrum Tritonium et alios doctos sodalitatis Litterariæ nostræ musicos secundū naturas & tempora syllabarū et pedum compositæ et regulate ductu Chunradi Celtis fæliciter impresse, etc. Yet Nos. 1–19 of the 22 settings are for different Odes and Epodes of Horace. The second edition—a quarto—mentions Horace, but suppresses the “other learned musicians” in its brief title: Harmonie Petri Tritoni super odis Horatii Flacci. This lead is now generally followed.Google Scholar
† A copy is in the British Museum. The title reads: Odarum Horatij Concentus, cum quibusdam alijs Carminum generibus, etc. This time the name of Tritonius is suppressed, both in the title and in the body of the book.Google Scholar
† Geminas vndeuiginti odarum Horatii melodiae, etc., edited by Petrus Nigidius. The “two sets” of melodies are those of Tritonius and those of Michael, to be mentioned below. The editor includes a large number of settings by different musicians for other poets besides Horace, and for other metres, some for three and some for four voices. A copy of this edition too is in the British Museum.Google Scholar
§ Varia carminum genera, quibus turn Horatius, turn alij egregij Poetas, Grasci et Latini, veteres et recentiores, sacri et prophani usi sunt, suauissimis Harmoniis cōposita, authors Ludouico Senflio. The additional settings number twelve.Google Scholar
∗ Breuis Musicæ Isagoge. … Accesserunt priori æditions omnia Horatij genera: item Heroica, Elegiaca &c. quatuor uocibus ad æquales, in studiosorum adolescentum gratia composita.Google Scholar
† The book was very popular, having been reprinted in 1512, 14, 16, 17, 20, 26. The British Museum has the 1512 edition.Google Scholar
∗ De Partium Orationis Inflexionibus, alijsq adcidentibus, ac Syntaxi earundem, Compendium Theobaldi Billicani. Modi vndeuiginti odarum Horatianarum, ad iuuentutem ezercendam facti. M. V. XXVI.Google Scholar
† Harmoniæ poeticæ Pauli Hofheimeri. … tum uocibus humanis, tum etiam instrumentis accommodatissimæ.Google Scholar
† Bibliotheca Vniuersalis, Tiguri, 1545, fol. 143a: “Benedictus Dux scripsit Harmonias in omnes odas P. Horatij, et plura alia carminum genera, tribus et quatuor uocibus. in gratiå iuuentutis Vlmensis. Opus excusum Vlmæ, anno 1539, in 4. transucrso, chartis 12.” The name and identity of Benedictus Ducis has been authoritatively discussed by W. Barclay Squire: “Who was ‘Benedictus’?” in the Report of the Fourth Congress of the International Music Society (London, 1911), 1912, pp. 151–157.Google Scholar
∗ Besides the 1563 edition, Eitner mentions reprints of 1568, 70, 74, 79, 81, 83, 90.Google Scholar
† Drey news, schöne und lustigs Comoedien: Almansor. … Captiui. … Hanso Framea. … verdeutscht und mit hübschen Choris geziert. … von M. Martino Hayneccio. See A. Prüfer: Untersuchungen über den ausserkirchlicken Kunstgesang in den evangelischen Sckulen des 16. Jakrhunderts, 1890, where the music is reproduced.Google Scholar
‡ Libellus scholasticus pro Senatoriæ Numburgensium Scholæ pueris, Jena, 1607. The musical settings of Horace occupy the fourth of the five sections into which the book is divided.Google Scholar
∗ Ein geistlich Gesangbuch für christliche Kirchen und recht Luterische Schulen, Jena, 1612.Google Scholar
† I have only found two reproduced (along with an unidentified melody) well after Glareanus's time in the Paedagogus of Joannes Thomas Freigins, Basel, 1582.Google Scholar
‡ Harmoniæ vniuocæ in odas Horatianas, et in alia quadam carminum genera, collecta. … A Matthæo Collino, Vitebergæ, 1555.Google Scholar
∗ For the reprint of 1568 see G. Draud: Bibliotheca Classica, Frankfurt, 1611, p. 1214.Google Scholar
† The following is a summary of the years in which these settings appeared, according to the preceding pages: 1507 (2), 1511, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, 26 (2), 31, 32, 34, 39, 47, 51–52, 55(2), 63, 68 (2), 70, 74, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 90, 1607, 1612. These figures must be considerably supplemented towards the end of the century by those representing the reprints of Olthof's settings (first published in 1585), as given below. Further, a setting of an Epode by a foreigner, Orlandus Lassus, not belonging to Tritonius's school, was published several times in Germany from 1569 onwards—see also below.Google Scholar
‡ These settings are quoted on the authority of J. C. Brunet: Manuel du libraire, Paris, 1860, etc., tom 3, col. 326.Google Scholar
§ Lassus has such a complicated bibliography that I prefer to record only those collections (all in the British Museum) in which I have actually found the Horace setting. These are as follows:—Cantiones aliquot quinque vocum, Munich, 1569; Fasciculi aliquot sacrarum cantionum, Nuremberg, 1582; Fasciculus aliquot sacrarum cantionum, Nuremberg, 1589; Magnum opus musicum, Munich, 1604; Vol. XI. of the Sämmtliche Werke of Lassus, Leipzig, 1894, etc.; these German editions are to be supplemented by collections published at Paris under the following titles; Mellange, 1570; Les Meslanges, 1576; Meslange de la musique, 1586; and Le Thresor de musique, 1594. Other possible issues in which the setting may occur can be seen from Eitner's Chronologisches Verzeichniss of the works of Lassus, but collections having similar titles to those given above do not necessarily contain it.Google Scholar
∗ Psalmorum Dauidis parophrasis poetica Georgii Buchanani Scoti: Argumentis ac melodiis explicata atque illustrata. Opera & studio Nathanis Chytraei. Frankfurt, 1585.Google Scholar
∗ I have noted the following editions:—1585, 86, 88, 90, 92, 95, 97 (2), 1600, 02. 04, 08, 10, 13, 16, 19, 24, 37, 40 (London), 46, 48 (London), 36, 60 (London), 64, 83/72 (London—indicating issues of 1572 and 1583), 1703, and an edition sine anno. It may be mentioned that a number of Buchanan's Psalms had been set to music earlier (1379) by Jean Servin; his settings are free, however, and so bear no relation whatever to Horace.Google Scholar
∗ MS. Mus. b. 1.Google Scholar
† MSS. Mus. Sch. 26849 and 26846.Google Scholar
‡ Reprints of 1730 (?) and 1748 (Universal Magazine, vol. IV. p. 311) are known to me.Google Scholar
∗ Quinti Horatii Flacci odae sex. … fidibus vocalique musicas. … restitutas (Brunet, loc. cit. and Eitner, Quallen-Lexikon, s.v. Paganelli).Google Scholar
† Del Canzoniere d'Orazio di Giovan Gualberto Bottarelli Ode XII. Messe in Musica da' più rinomati Professori Inglesi. Ed. 2, Londra, 1757.Google Scholar
∗ See Friedlånder (Max): Das deutsche Lied im 18 Jakrhundert, Stuttgart und Berlin, 1902, Bd. I. pp. 9 and 125–127.Google Scholar
† Or rather, the first verse of III. 13 in German (O Blandusiens Quell'), and the second verse of II. 19 in Latin and German.Google Scholar
‡ Sei Ode di Oratio, Tradotte in Lingua Italiana da Giovan Gualberto Bottarelli, messe in musica da Signori Bach, Giordani, Boroni, Vento, Barthelemon è Holtzbaur. Londra.Google Scholar
§ Published as The Reconciliation. A Dialogue, translated from the 9th Ode of the 3d Book of Horace, by the late John Green, Esqr. Begins: “While with a gentle smile yon strove,” etc.Google Scholar
‖ In A Collection of Songs for Three and Four Voices, never before Publish'd. Composed by Jonathan Battishill, Pt. I. pp. 14, 15. Begins: “With glasses made for gay delight,” etc.Google Scholar
¶ Horatii carmen ad Aelium Lamiam. Ode des Horaz, in Musik gesetzt.…von Johann Adam Hiller, Leipzig. 1778.Google Scholar
∗∗ The British Museum copy bears the title: Katarinae Aug. Piae. Felici Ottomannicae. Tauricae Musagetae Q. Horatii Flacci Carmen. Saeculare lyricis. concentibus. restitutum A. D. Philidor D.D.D. A.C. CIOIOLXXXVIII. According to Eitner, Quellen-Lexikon. s.v. Philidor, there is a Paris edition of 1787.Google Scholar
∗ In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated November 21, 1778.Google Scholar
† The Fifth Ode of the First Book of Horace, set to Music with a Harp, or Piano Forte Accompaniment, by T. Wright. London, [1796].Google Scholar
‡ In The Piano-forts Magazine, vol. XV. No. 2, song 11, beginning: “While liquid odours round him breathe,” etc.Google Scholar
∗ See Eitner, Quellen-Lexikon, s.v. Ruppe. There appear to be two other settings by him still in manuscript.Google Scholar
† Besides appearing in the students' song-books, it has been published by Messrs. Novello & Co. in various of their collections of glees and part-songs.Google Scholar
‡ No. 79 of The Singer's Library of Concerted Music. Edited by John Hullah.Google Scholar
§ Quinti Horatii Flacci Carmen XXX ad Venerem. This bears no other indication of origin than the imprint, “London: C. Lonsdale. 26 Old Bond St.” and the serial number 3622.Google Scholar
‖ Let others quaff the racy wine. Glee for A.T.T.B. The words from Horace Ode 31. Book 1. (To Apollo). Francis's translation. The music composed by the Rev. Lord O'Neill.Google Scholar
∗ Lydie. (Horace—Ode IX. livre III). Duo pour Soprano et Baryton (ou Ténor). Traduction d'Alfred de Musset. Musique de A. Z. Holmès. Paris.Google Scholar
† Fünf Oden des Horaz, auf den Lateinischen Text mit deutscher Uebersetzung von Voss für vier Männerstimmen componirt von C. Loewe. Op. 38. Berlin.Google Scholar
∗ Tunes for Horatian Metres for use in schools. By Robert P. Brerstor, M.A.Google Scholar
† Mr. Brereton's Tunes were brought to my notice by Professor Slater, who with their aid has revived the old practice of having Horace rang in the class-room.Google Scholar
‡ Die Oden des Horaz, mit genauer Übertragung der alten Metren in musikalische Rhythmen als einfache Singweisen für eine Singstimme und Pianoforte, von Rudolf Zwintscher. Leipzig. These settings were brought to my notice by the late Dr. C. Harford Lloyd, who used them at Eton.Google Scholar