And there are certainly fat black and purple rain clouds in the sky but, eh, who knows. It is the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord (Introibo); I'm saying the Office in its Divino afflatu version i.e. with commemoration of Saint Barnabas at Lauds and Vespers-- the Tridentine Office doesn't know the feast of the Sacred Heart, obviously. Must be at Prime. It has begun to rain, fairly steadily.
The Introit Cogitationes cordis eius, of the Mass post 1929.
I can't find any recordings of the Introit of the Mass ante 1929, Miserébitur secúndum multitúdinem miseratiónum suárum. There is bound to be a learned essay or two describing the differences between the ante and post 1929 Masses-- whether I chivvy 'em out or not remains to be seen.
The Alleluia of today's Mass-- tollite iugum meum super vos, et discite a me, quia mitis sum et humilis Corde, et invenietis requiem animabus vestris (Matthaeum 11,29)-- is the subject of the Neumz email today.
... The melody takes on this invitation to love and peace with a very marked tenderness that some may even find exaggerated or at least not obviously ‘spiritual’ enough. The opening intonation is very beautiful; what an admirable invitation, imbued with humble and tender gentleness. The phrase continues with the same sentiment and is well adapted, except perhaps meum is too separate from jugum and is overdeveloped for the simplicity of Our Lord. The super nos cadenza, on the other hand, has a very simple but passionate pleading nuance. The second phrase is also very successful musically, but it is difficult to understand the extensive pneumatic development of the conjunction et although it forms a single entity with the adjective humilis, in which the melody also takes on too fiery a character to sing of humility. The same criticism could be made of the word requiem, which uses the same motif. Undoubtedly, the author was more concerned with the expression of the whole than with the details.
I don't claim such an intimate knowledge of 'Gregorian Chant' so as to be able to make the sort of judgments the Neumz author makes in the passage supra but obviously, by the use of terms such as exaggerated, not obviously 'spiritual' enough, overdeveloped for the simplicity of Our Lord (what can that possibly mean?), a melody of too fiery a character to sing of humility, he finds himself (or she herself) in a posture of disapprobation here. I don't find the Alleluia disordered or inappropriate at all, myself.
It is also the feast of Saint Maximus of Naples (4th century), of Saint Rembertus of Hamburg and Bremen (9th century), and of Saint Bardo of Magonza (11th century).
V. Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum. R. Deo grátias.
LDVM
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