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  • Pour répondre à votre question sur l'auteur du "Puer natus in Bethléem" il semble qu'on doive l'attribuer à Théodoricus Petri (1550-1617), étudiant finlandais à l'université  de Rostock.

    Ce cantique de Nöel fait partie de ceux que l'on trouve dans le recueuil Piae Cantiones, tel que le célèbre "Gaudete, gaudete".

    • we're looking for much earlier source than "Piae cantiones" and also of a monophonic version

       

  • aa, maybe in my example 1. means simply the first strophe. Still, 2nd mode is also not entirely convincing.

    • Sorry for messing it up, my former post preceded the last two by Agnieszka, but hopefully I fixed it now.

      You are right the cadences on E are interesting, but I would not call them "unconvincing" just because they appear in a Dorian tune. But the cadence here is exactly as I remember the Aquitanian one. Thus, 12th century seems the earliest we can get! 

    • Oliver, I think they mean II. as Dorian plagal, no? Krisztina: where is your transcription from? What a funny story: a well known piece with very obscure origins, it seems...

       

       

    • It is a tricky question, I usually decide it from the local perspective of a suitable tonary, but the beginning (as an intonation of the incipit) is definitely an argument for plagi proti or tonus secundus.  

       

    • But in case of Ma 289 and BL Egerton 2615 you deal with a clausula which is part of «Alleluia Christus resurgens» which is due to the subject composed in autentus proti, but not every clausula on its own has necessarily the same tonality like the cantus from which it has been taken. In case of a Benedicamus tropus it is as well the question of its cantus.

    • Dear Oliver, maybe we misunderstood each other. I'm talking only about a monodic piece (nothing about clausulae or so).

       

    • No, on the contrary we hit the nail right on its head!

      There are also motets composed over the same tune with three different texts at the same time (every genre, whatever you like!), while the 4-part clausula in F (ff. 7v-8r) is just a 4-part clausula. But in case of manuscripts in libellum structure of Palermo and of Beauvais, liturgical dramas are right in its focus (some pages which precede the tonary in case of Palermo). The libellum structure is well known since the manuscripts at Limoges written by Roger and Adémar de Chabannes... Thus, you have a troper, a sequentiary, and in case of Palermo also a conductus collection etc. Both compositions «Natus est» have a Nativity subject and are rubrified as conductus, in case of Palermo it was transcribed as monophonic by David Hiley, this was rather a meloform tropus over the cantus. In case of the Aquitanian version on the CD, my memory is too vague, but it is possible that the refrain was notated as hidden polyphony and sung as two part.

      The text «et moritur mors» (both present in Palermo and Beauvais as you rightly quoted here) is taken from the Alleluiaverse «Christus resurgens», even if the classical Parisian clausula choose «jam non moritur» and «mors» separately as cantus sections. Now if you click at «Catalogi dei tenores» and scroll at the end of the section, you find the cantus (this is a very useful page of my Italian colleague Davide Daolmi):
      http://www.examenapium.it/meri/ludwig/index.html

      «non mo-ri-tur mors» do-fa-sol-la-sol-fa mi-re do-re re do

      In Palermo (the third time is & with a custos, f. 145r):

      «et mo-ri-tur mors | et moritur mors | et [moritur mors]» re fa-sol mi mi re | re fa-sol la-sol fa mi-re | re [fa-sol mi mi re]

      In Beauvais (f. 49v):
      https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_2615

      «et mo-ri-tur mors | et moritur mors | et moritur mors» re fa-mi-do re | do fa-mi-sol la | re fa-mi-do re

      And this time "and death dies" means birth!

      In Palermo you have the antagonism between the cadence on mi and the one on re...

      Returning finally to Krisztina's «Benedicamus» tropus, the case is not so evident like in the Bendom tune of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés D-A C-D, but you have the same antagonism (it was the antagonism between re and do in the cantus which is clearly a plagis proti melos). But the antagonism between the cadence on mi and the one on re seems rather an autentus proti melos, if you ask me.

      Temporum Stirpis Musica
  • Dominique's version is from Egerton 2615 anyway (and melodically even further away). But this aside: it seems really impossible to find the Puer natus in Bethleem origins or even the earliest version. Plus the ambiguity in mode assignment - here an example considered to be the I. mode (in Krisztina's egsample it seems to be the second - why?)10872876674?profile=RESIZE_584x

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