Gripla - 01.01.2003, Side 25

THE BUCHANAN PSALTER AND ITS ICELANDIC TRANSMISSION
23
salus written in memory of Egill Sveinbjömsson (1741-1808) of Innri Njarð-
vík, whose son Sveinbjöm Egilsson was one of the most eminent scholars of
his day and rector of the Latin school upon its relocation to Reykjavík in
1846.52
3. Manuscript sources: Four-part and Latin settings
Only two Icelandic sources transmit complete 4-part settings from the
Buchanan/Olthof psalter. AM 102 8vo is a paper manuscript written in the
second half of the seventeenth century, most of which (until the final leaves,
124r-130r; 130v has been left blank) consists of hymn texts without music.
The final section of the manuscript contains nine two-part pieces of diverse
origin, as well as two 4-part Buchanan/Olthof pieces to their original Latin
texts: Felix ille animi and 0 pater, o hominump The manuscript concludes
with Luce voco te, Buchanan’s paraphrase of Psalm 88, but this last text is
incomplete and no music is provided for it, although two empty staves have
been drawn at the bottom of the page.
The second source of Olthof s settings in four parts is Lbs 508 8vo, a
manuscript presumably written in the mid-eighteenth century.54 Previously
overlooked with regard to its musical content, this is the largest single
manuscript collection of Olthof s music to have been preserved in Iceland.
The 77-leaf manuscript is divided into three sections. The first of these (fols.
lr-45r) consists of fourteen Olthof settings, all but the first of which are in
four parts. The heading “Vikupsalmar utaf Lass: Bæn.” [Hymns for the week,
from the prayers of Lassenius] at the top of each page indicates that the Ice-
landic texts are paraphrases not of Buchanan, but of the Copenhagen pastor
Johann Lassenius (1636-1692), whose prayer collection Gudrækelegar VIKV
Bæner, Med Morgun og Kvplld Versum was first published at Hólar in 1728
52 Lbs 462 4to, no. 26 (single sheet, r/v): “Liödmæli qviedinn eptir Eigil sal. Sveinbjömsson í
Innriniardvík arid 1808.”
53 These pieces were transcribed by Bjami Þorsteinsson in IÞ, 171-174. Unable to make much
sense of the pieces (and scrambling to interpret the original clefs), he noted that both text and
music “appear to be defective” [“Bæði textinn og músíkin virðist vera defekt”]. Bjami Þor-
steinsson also gives the first two lines of Luce voco te, although he was unaware of the
origins of the text and believed it to be the conclusion of O pater, o hominum.
54 Skrá um handritasöfn Landsbókasafnsins vol. 2, 105.