Pierre de la Rue's O Salutaris Hostia
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    The choir of which I am a member has learned, some time ago, O Salutaris Hostia, of Pierre de la Rue.

    I've been helping a fellow choirmember re-learn the piece.

    According to the edition I have, in the last bar of the piece, the syllable "li" of the word "auxilium" in the highest part falls on the semi-breve, instead of the crochet preceding this semi-breve. It seems plausible to me that, given the compositional techniques of the time, the syllable "li" should start on the crochet instead of the semi-breve.

    I will try to find a copy I can load to this page to illustrate the point.

    Thoughts?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,366
    It would certainly be consistent with English syllabification habits.
    But then, la Rue wasn't.....
    But then, they all......
    I think that your instincts are right.

    (What edition have you?)
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    We sing this, will have to dig out our copies to see if we have changed it... I am moving house so it may take a while!

    We sing from the version found on CPDL. not that I can remember which one...
    http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/O_salutaris_hostia_(Pierre_de_La_Rue)
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    We sing from the Castro edition on CPDL, and just do it as written, and I never found anything unseemly about it. (Note values halved, minim and quaver, so it is the same syllabification you mention in your post.)
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