Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Síða 124
6TH JAN. IN EPIPHANIA DOMINI
mode, with final G. But in the foreign sources available to me, the
mode is different, mainly with final F, and then it is either Lydian
(with b natural) or transposed Ionian (with b flat). There is also
much discrepancy over the melody line, the second verse beginning
now an octave, now a fifth, above the end of the first verse, and
sometimes a third below it. Similar discrepancies appear throughout
the whole sequence.
MS. B. M. Cotton Caligula A XIV is worthy of note; it has the
Mixolydian mode transposed upwards to c (with b flat), a redaction
in which the top pitch of the melody repeatedly reaches d\ From v.
5 on, there are often many notes on a single syllable, making runs.
Not less remarkable is the form which P. Wagner (op. cit. p. 489)
presents from an Augustinian MS. in Freiburg (Switzerland); its level
is just as high as that of the form mentioned above, reaching d’ on
“(sa)be(a)” and “no(stra)” in v. 5. Here too the final is c; but with
b natural the mode becomes Ionian (only in v. 6 — on the 2nd
syllable — we find b flat).
Among the MSS. which the Rev. Henry Bannister, M. A. Oxon.
(d. 1919) left behind, intended for printing, comprising transcriptions
of all the medieval sequence MSS. known to him (as a coeditor of
AH), there are also some of “Gaudete vos fideles”. The one which
seemed the best basis for a reconstruction of the music which (together
with words) is lacking in our fragment of H, is the one marked “Bran-
der”. It stands, however, in the Lydian mode (F), and has to be lifted a
second in order to correspond to H; consequently the mode must be
changed to Mixolydian (G). In v. 6, however, the key must have
been wrongly placed in the source, and this has been rectified in the
transcription given here (also in accordance with P. W.’s copy, where
it is transposed a fourth down. On the whole, in this way our tran-
scription tallies well with his copy, except that b natural there must
be moved a tritonus down, to F).
H contains only vv. 3-5, and these incompletely. Where it differs
essentially, as in vv. 3 and 5, it is written beneath “Brander” on a
special staff. In v. 4 the differences are so slight that down-turned
note-stems suffice.
Notice that the melody of “sacramenta” and “flagramenta” in v. 5,
and of “chorus alia” in v. 6, is the same as that of the beginning <
and refrain of “Letabundus”.
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