Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1968, Page 246
DE BEATA MARIA V.
HODIERNE LUX DIEI CELEBRIS
MS: o. Fac. 322, 1. 6 — fac. 323,1. 3.
Text printed in AH 54, No. 219.
Textual differences from AH: 2b (4) oris voce] ore votis, 3b (6)
miro] mira(!), 4a (7) hortus] ortus, 5a (9) decus] splendor, 5b (10)
obvia] ualida.
The words of the sequence are also printed in Missale Nidrosiense.
As the melody is the same as that of “Spe mercedis et corone”,
which has been transcribed in connection with that sequence, no
transcription will be given here (see also “Predicasti dei care”). Yet
there is the difference that o has no flat before the b’s, so that the
mode is Dorian, while in the MSS. of “Spe mercedis” (and “Predi-
casti”) the mode of the melody is Aeolian, transposed to D, with
b flat. Such is also the case with the French rendering of the melody
which Dr. Georg Reiss has transcribed (from the St. Victor Gradual,
Bibi. Nat. ms. 14452, latin, fol. 210) and published in his dissertation
“Musiken ved den middelalderlige Olavsdyrkelse i Norden”, 1911,
p. 65.
There is of course the possibility that in our MS. the flåts have
been omitted by oversight, and ought to be there; flåts are often
forgotten in many parts of a melody which ought to have them,
while as a rule appearing in other parts. But when they never occur,
as in this case, it may be assumed that the mode is meant to be
Dorian throughout, a minor mode which (together with the major
Lydian mode) is pre-eminent in Icelandic folk song.
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