Help Finding a Trope in Guerrero Mass
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    My chant group is preparing the "Sanctus" from the Guerrero Missa Beata Mater for our upcoming spring concert. For the life of me, though, I can't find the source chant for the trope in this piece.

    http://www.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/16/02/22/15-10-39_0.pdf

    Is this version of Beata Mater something found only in Spanish (Mozarabic?) missals? Could someone help me find it?
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Hmm... my index of the Analecta gives Vol. 47 pg. 301-369 for the Sanctus Tropes, and as far as my index this is the only volume... I have just had a quick look and could not find it... link below will take you to pg. 301

    https://archive.org/stream/analectahymnicam4647drev#page/300/mode/2up
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    Question (pardon my ignorance): Is the use of this melody a trope, or is it a cantus firmus? I ask this because the text "Beata Mater et innupta" is underlaid along with the Sanctus and Hosanna text, as if to delineate the (presumably) original chant text. The practice of using a particular cantus firmus melody for a Mass setting (or other musical setting) is not a rare occurrence at all. For example, the Taverner Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas uses the chant "Gloria tibi Trinitas" as a cantus firmus in every movement. One doesn't refer to such usage as a "trope" which is a different sort of thing, typically of a form that intersperses parts of the trope with parts of the main text, e.g.

    1. Santcus,
        "Lux et sapientia, omnium creatrix,"
    Sanctus,
        "Qui es splendor gloriae et figura patris,"
    2. Sanctus,
        "Aura flante caelitus ab aeterno die,"
    Dominus Deus Sabaoth,
        "Perflas latus tenerum virginis Mariae."
    etc.

    Also, there is a somewhat different melody for "Beata Mater et innupta" used as a cantus firmus in the motet O Virgo prudentissima by Josquin des Prez, available at CPDL.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    Ignorance is on my part, Charles. I meant cantus firmus.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    I googled "Beata Mater et innupta" and in 5 minutes this is all that I could find out:

    A peek at Nacho Alvarez' edition of the whole mass (also indexed from CPDL) seems to confirm this is a cantus firmus mass rather than a parody of a motet.

    Cantus database lists sources and associated feasts

    A more promising Cantus page, with links to facsimiles

    Link listing a book, René-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium Officii, nr. 6168
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    None of the sources Richard Mix gives (I had googled and found the same reusults) has this particular melody, either with the incipits or the sources for which there are links to images. Neither the Guerrero nor the Josquin tune seem to be among these sources.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    Josquin's cantus is very like Gombert's (altus bar 71)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    I erred in describing the Guerrero Sanctus-Hosanna. This movement is an example of a "bitextual" setting. The original work has the text of "Beata Mater et innupta" as the sole underlay in the cantus firmus part, the corresponding "Sanctus" and "Hosanna" underlay that was added is editorial (by Ostrowski in the cited example).

    Bitextual masses were not uncommon, and in the Spanish school(s), Morales, Victoria, and Guerrero all produced examples of them. They also appear in other (notably Flemish) masses. Indeed "polytextual" masses were composed, perhaps the most notable being Jacob Obrecht's Missa 'Sub tuum praesidium" which features the hymn "Sub tuum praesidium" in the top voice in every movement, but also employs four other Marian chants/hymns in various movements: 'Audi nos', 'Mediatrix nostra', 'Supplicamus', and 'Celsus nuntiat Gabriel'.
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