LAMBILLOTTE

Richard Mix

I think it was Adam Wood who said he came fresh to AURELIA, something I can identify with since I seem to lack the baggage of cradle Catholics around LAMBILLOTTE, which came up in a recent thread. Interesting how the antipathetic side is just as fierce! CharlesW spoke of removing Proulx's "additions" to make it more palatable.

So where might there be an urtext? Hymnary.org doesn't go back very far at all, and I didn't recognize the tune in a very cursory perusal of Choix de cantiques.

ronkrisman

Richard, the hymn is not in the words-only Catholic Hymns (Albany, 1860). But it is found (with LAMBILLOTTE) at no. 160 in The Roman Hymnal (New York, 1884). That may be the first appearance of the wedding of text and tune in the USA. Perhaps there is an earlier appearance in England?

Did someone other than Fr. Caswall revise his longer text? The LAMBILLOTTE version, I think, always has three stanzas plus doxology. And the text (and tune) has more of a 4 48 4 48 meter than LM.

Adam Wood

I don't remember saying that, but I did find @Gavin saying something similar:

Growing up Catholic and never hearing it, I was thrilled by it the first time I learned to play it.

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/4447/150-indispensable-catholic-hymns/p1

My thoughts on LAMBILLOTTE are:
WHAT'S WRONG WITH FREAKING LAMBILLOTTE?!?!

I can imagine the scene. The Wednesday before Pentecost. The rehearsal room. The Music director hands out the list for this Sunday.

CHOIR MEMBER: "Why aren't we singing 'Come Holy Ghost'?"
MUSIC DIRECTOR: "I'm sorry, folks. We can't use LAMBILLOTTE in this parish anymore."
CHOIR MEMBER: "Why not?"
MUSIC DIRECTOR: "Last time I played it.... it...well.... it made me smile. I couldn't help myself."
CHOIR MEMBER: "Of course! It's such a happy, wonderful hymn!"
MUSIC DIRECTOR: "Don't you get it?!?! I HATE HAPPINESS!"

Gavin

MUSIC DIRECTOR: "Don't you get it?!?! I HATE HAPPINESS!"

I honestly believe this is how a lot of people here think.

oldhymns

The first American appearance of the hymn is in The Catholic Youth Hymnal (Christan Brothers, 1871), which was reprinted many times and used well into the 20th Century. It's also in Caswall's 1849 Lyra Catholica.

The first, second, and fourth verses are the same in The Catholic Youth Hymnal and the Roman Hymnal. The third verse was altered in the Roman Hymnal.

chonak

MUSIC DIRECTOR: "Don't you get it?!?! I HATE HAPPINESS!"

I honestly believe this is how a lot of people here think.

Happiness: it's so tacky.

:-)

Choirparts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nklHOLJlvTY&list=PL86586AA84B2C2051

:-)

G

It is no more a "waltz," as someone said elsewhere, than is GROSSER GOTT.
I used it where the Sequence should have gone last weekend, (special circumstances, I don't think even the most extreme rigorist here would disapprove,) and you have never seen such "happy."
It's a good, sturdy hymn with a homely [def 3] tune.
I'm certain growing up I never heard it but once a year, but the congregation positively roared it every Pentecost. The tune is almost perfect in its simplicity, IMO, all either step-wise or outlining the tonic triad, and the Jesuit who wrote it deserves to be memorialized at least once a year for his attempts to revive chant.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Adam Wood

Later that week, after the 10am Mass...

PARISHIONER: Why didn't we get to sing "Come Holy Ghost" this year? Everybody loves that hymn!
MUSIC DIRECTOR: Your job isn't to love the hymns. I play the music, and you and the rest of those PIPs can just SIT THERE AND TAKE IT.

BruceL

We used the Proulx harm this year, and I have to say I'd forgotten that it's not his best work. Lots of gilding the lily.

Salieri

I feel that I should explain my reasons for disliking this tune - Love the words, BTW.

The Parish I currently work at is in fact my home parish (for better or worse). Prior to my appointment as organist my predecessor and her colleagues (there were two other elderly volunteer organists who rotated the daily Mass) played LAMBILLOTTTE, LOBE DEN HERRN, and GROSSER GOTT (which I also find too waltzy) to death -- every day the Processional hymn was one of these.

They were not played quickly, but very, very slowly; the principle organist and one of the volunteers did not play the full SATB but simply melody and chords - oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah. And the singing was dreadful: my predecessor had an incredibly LOUD voice with a warble of nearly a semi-tone above and below the principle note (I'm not kidding!) and drowned out practically the whole choir and congregation. I have actually been thanked by the choir and many pips for not programming these pieces as much - because we all have a kind of musical PTSD regarding them.

I do not play LAMBILLOTTE at all, I play GROSSER GOTT a couple times a year, and LOBE DEN HERRN more frequently, though I try to avoid it if I can.

YMMV, FWIW.

If you and your pips love these hymns, then by all means, play them - often, and with gusto. Do a Last Verse on full organ, if you want. I won't stop you. But I'll stick with DOWN AMPNEY, LAUDA ANIMA and MOSCOW. Pax.

melofluent

We used the Proulx harm this year, and I have to say I'd forgotten that it's not his best work. Lots of gilding the lily.

That was the strangest aspect to Mr. Proulx's harmonic vocabulary, it's like he turned (Jekyll/Hyde) from Alice Parker to Bela Bartok (whom I like, but not at church) with some of his best melodies. Go figure.

noel jones, aago

I think that some here may be unaware that most everyone who was confirmed learned and sang this hymn - even recently. There is a core, including Immaculate Mary and Holy God that are universal in the Catholic English-speaking world...and extend into other languages as well.

G

I think that some here may be unaware that most everyone who was confirmed learned and sang this hymn - even recently.

I think you might be saddened to know in how many places DREs have done their best to supplant it with the 4/4 tune cobbled out of LAMBILOTTE by someone in the OCP stable.
But hey! at least it's not a waltz...;oD

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

donr

I agree G, Until I started to offer my services for Confirmation you would never heard LAMBILLOTTE. It saddened me greatly that the young adults would never hear it especially on such a great day.

noel jones, aago

"New and Different" destroyed the music in the Church. Always did, always was discarded .

Two choruses of Sons Of God, please.

Richard Mix

Thanks, Fr. Krisman, the Roman Hymnal is available at archive.com in melody only pew edition and 4-part harmony and it's easy to flip to 160. I'm really not very sure I don't like the Proulx much better after all. ;-) Are any French sources online?

The book has an impressive amount of Latin (unsurprisingly) and an odd way of notating chant: in O come O come Emmanuel (No. 118) the dotted rhythms are obviously intended, but in Rorate coeli (No. 119) it appears that quaver crochet and minum are not necessarily in a 2-4-8 relation, which would produce a startling Lutheran Book of Worship effect. I'm puzzled by O Salutaris (No. 27), DUGUET not usually striking me as a Solesmes-style (or Ratisbon?) tune!

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