Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Page 25
an Amen, which was not always the case - often (or generally) had
a freely siung line.1
Let us take the French sequence for the Holy Mother, “Hodierne lux
diei / celebris in matris dei / agitur memoria -”.2 According to Reiss
and Moberg, the Amen-melody (both in Bibi. Nat. 14452 fol. 210, and
in Sangall. 546) is as follows; but here the train of notes has more syl-
lables to be sung on, namely: “Amen dicant omnia” (I use Reiss’s
transcription):
The sequence for St. Thomas of Canterbury, “Spe mercedis et
corone —” (apparently originated in South Germany), used the same
melody; and it is found in a Norwegian manuscripts, where, unfortun-
ately, a little is wanting at the end, so that we do not know whether it
had an Amen, and, if so, with what melody. It is also found in an
Icelandic manuscript, and there complete, with a Roman Catholic Amen.
To an abbreviated form of this melody - comprising 3 verses out of
5 — the shorter Olavus-sequence “Predicasti dei care —” has been sung,
as we learn from a Norwegian manuscript; and the concluding Amen
has the following melody (in Reiss’s transcription):
And now the great Olavus-sequence “Lux illuxit letabunda —
The parchment leaf on which Dr. Reiss built the main part of his
dissertation on the “Olavus-music”, contains only the first two thirds
or so of this sequence. “To supplement the rest from other Norwegian
manuscripts cannot be done,” he says, “because we - so far as I know —
do not possess medieval music manuscripts where the last verses of the
sequence are written. On the other hånd, I have — mainly in Swedish
1. Possibly connected with, or inspired by, the melody of the Alleluia which is
sometimes added to the Amen (e. g. in most of the sequences now in use), or
appears instead of Amen.
2. Although nothing of it has survived in Norwegian manuscripts, it must have
been in use in Norway, because the text is printed in Missale Nidrosiense.
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