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Angelis suis home Below
you find from the office-repertory (the services of the Daily Round) the
beginning of the responsory "Angelis suis" in several alternative musical
notations. (For other examples see In logitudinem dierum) Mont-Renaud, 10th century, Codex in
private collection, PM 16 (1955)
Hartker, around 1000, Saint Gall
390-391, PM II-1 (1900)
Lucca, 12th century, Cap. 601, PM 9
(1906)
Utrecht, 12e eeuw, UB 406, The Institute of
Mediaeval Music, Ottawa 1997
Worcester, 13th century, Bibl. de la Cath.
F 160, PM 12 (1922)
Processionale Monasticum, Solesmes 1893
ambrosian chant, Antiphonale Missarum
Mediolanensis, Rome 1935
modern music notation
fluxus, since 1996
Braille
sproken music in mp3 Angelis suis
The
responsory "Angelis suis" comes from the Matins (the Night Office)
of the first Sunday in Lent (6th Sunday before Easter). The text comes from
psalm 91(90). All proper chants of the Mass of that Sunday are taken from
this psalm. The psalm stresses the faith with which one can enter the Lenten
period, a fast of fourty days. The same psalm is traditionally sung every
evening in Compline (the service that closes the day) and stresses there the
confidence to enter the darkness of the night. The
complete text of the responsorium reads: Angelis
suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis; in manibus
portabunt te, ne unquam offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum. Super aspidem et basiliscum
ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et draconem. In
translation: He
shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They
shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt
thou trample under feet. A
few thousands of this type of responsoria have been preserved in medieval
manuscripts. In his Corpus Antiphonalium Officii IV (Rome, 1970) René-Jean
Hesbert collected and compared from 12 selected manuscripts almost 2000 of
these responsoria. In the famous Hartker manuscript (Saint Gall, around 1000,
probably the oldest complete manuscript with office-chants in music notation)
there are almost 800 responsories. Although the monks of Solesmes in 1895
published in their Liber Responsorialis 334 responsoria, the majority of the
responsoria have not been sung for ages. In the liturgy (re)introduced by
these monks at the end of the 19th century the responsoria have a negligible
function. In 2002 the Nocturnale Romanum was published, in which were 748
responsoria. But probably these chants will seldom be sung. For
a better understanding of gregorian text treatment and centonisation
technique (composition/improvisation by means of melodic formulas) the
responsoria are of major importance. From the Hartker manuscript (Saint Gall,
Stiftsbibliothek 390-391) you can find here ten of such responsories in
fluxus-notation. |
