Gripla - 01.01.2003, Qupperneq 30

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GRIPLA
steinsson’s Islenzk þjóðlög includes a transcription of this melody in highly
omamented form, as it was sung by Sigurveig Ámadóttir (1828-after 1903)
from Lundur in Fnjóskadalur.66 In the nineteenth century, Olthofs melody was
also transmitted orally among the students at Bessastaðaskóli, who sang it to
a Horatian ode text in the same poetic meter, Maecenas, atavis edite regibus.61
Princeps stelliferis remains in the hymnody of the Icelandic Lutheran
church, although its popularity has diminished somewhat during the past cen-
tury. The 1886 Sálmabók contained four texts to the melody of Princeps
stelliferisrUpp hef ég augun mín.”68 Only one of these was retained in the re-
vised 1945 edition (“Lát opnast augu mín” by Valdimar Briem) but another
text was added: “Sólin til fjalla fljótt,” attributed to Hallgrímur Pétursson.69 In
the most recent edition of the Lutheran Hymnal (1997), the two texts from the
66 1Þ, 699-700. Bjami Þorsteinsson’s version in ÍÞ is a rhythmically altered version of a
transcription made for him by Rev. Einar Pálsson of Hof in Fnjóskadalur, and which
accompanied the Reverend’s letter to him dated 11 November 1903 (Stofnun Áma
Magnússonar, Bjami Þorsteinsson collection, folder 1). A complete analysis of the variants
between the written and oral versions is beyond the scope of the present study. The following
remarks must therefore suffice. Of the eight phrases of Olthof s melody, only the fifth and
sixth are substantially the same in both versions. Within each version, the fourth and eighth
phrases are more or less identical. The modal setting has been substantially altered,
however: Olthof s F major (transposed to C major in Pétur Guðjónsson’s 1861 Hymnal) is
transformed into an ambiguous E-mode without a second scale-degree (thus allowing for a
modal interpretation of either E-Phrygian or E-Aeolian). In the oral version a C-cadence (in
Pétur Guðjónsson’s Hymnal) is always replaced by an E-cadence (maintaining the basic
transpositional interval of a third), but G-cadences are replaced by cadences on C
(transposing up a fourth). The first phrase is an exception: here G-cadence in the 1861
Hymnal becomes a cadence on E in the oral version. The example of “Grát, auga, guðs son
dó” confirms the tendency (first observed by Róbert A. Ottósson) for major-mode pieces to
be transformed into the Phrygian mode in the Icelandic oral tradition, and for minor-mode
pieces to become Lydian. See Róbert A. Ottósson, “Tvesang,” in Kulturhistorisk leksikonfor
nordisk middelalder, vol. 19, cols. 84-85.
67 IÞ, 574. Our information regarding the pieces sung by students in the first decades of the
nineteenth century comes from Páll Melsteð (1812-1910), a historian and student at
Bessastaðaskóli from 1828-1834. An 1895 list of melodies sung at Bessastaðaskóli during
Páll Melsteð’s years of study has survived; it consists of 57 items (51 Icelandic texts followed
by six Latin texts). See IÞ, 572-574; the original is in Stofnun Áma Magnússonar, Bjami
Þorsteinsson collection, folder 6.
68 Sálmahók til kirkju- og heimasöngs, no. 248 (“f dag er dýrmæt tíð’’ — Helgi Hálfdánarson);
no. 274 (“Með iðmn, auðmýkt, trú” — Páll Jónsson); no. 304 (“Hve sælt er sérhvert land” —
Valdimar Briem); no. 306 (“Lát opnast augu mín” — Valdimar Briem).
69 The attribution to Hallgrímur Pétursson is questionable. The text first appears, without
attribution, in Hymnodia sacra (1742), copied nearly seven decades after Pétursson’s death.