Mananitas and Our Lady of Guadalupe
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    I'm pulling together the music for Vespers for this feast in December. Are there antiphons peculiar to this feast in the Roman Breviary? I can't seem to find them in my Liber - and I recall (not from personal experience) that this feast was not as widely celebrated in earlier years. Or should I just fall back on the standard materials for a Feast of Our Lady? That the first question.

    The second is not like unto it, but related. I like to add something beyond the liturgical texts either before or after the Vespers. And I'm not averse to attempting Las Mananitas, even though we wouldn't be singing them before dawn. When I looked in a bilingual OCP hymnal, I found this with the melody that I know as a Mexican birthday song. Maybe the tune is the same? I'd appreciate suggestions from folks who know more than I do about these things. While it would be wonderful to some bit of polyphony from New Spain, I'm honestly not up to arranging it for female voices right now. So I'm looking for something straightforward.

    All responses gratefully received and considered.

    Mary Jane
  • Richard R.
    Posts: 774
    I have access to the 1959 edition of the Liber usualis, which includes a supplement of proper feasts of dioceses in the U.S. It includes Mass and Vespers for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12. I have attached a PDF file containing the antiphons for Second Vespers. If you are using the modern rite, you will need to select antiphons based on the number of psalms you will be singing. Also note that the 2007 edition of the Antiphonale Monasticum only lists Gospel canticle antiphons, which for the Magnificat antiphon is Nigra sum sed formosa (in the Liber p. 1259).

    Let me know if you need more information.
    OurLadyOfGuadalupeVespers.pdf
    60K
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    Thanks so much, Richard.
  • Diaconus Ericus
    Posts: 6
    Are you familiar with the Chanticleer CD entitled "Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe 1764" which is the entire Office by Ignacio de Jerusalem? That might be the polyphony from New Spain that you referred to. It would be pretty cool to encounter some of this at a Mananitas.

    An interesting observation from the CD is that there is an extended treatment of the Te Deum, which, of course is always sung at Matins on a feast as it is during the Office of Readings in the LOTH. I have never seen the Te Deum sung during Mananitas, but it seems like it would be appropriate.

    Did the celebration, as it is done today, grow out of an older tradition of festive Matins? I honestly do not know.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    What? No "Buenos Dias, Paloma Blanca?"
    Nevermind, no liturgical Venn diagrams need apply.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    Richard R. - Now that I'm through with the Presentation of the Virgin and prepping for Guadalupe, I can't find the PDF you sent of the second vespers from the 1959 LU. Could you repost?

    The rest of you can waste those idle hours on YouTube, watching mananitas. Make sure you add "guadalupena" to your search or you'll find Topo Gigo (yes, Eddie's little Italian mouse) singing the birthday song.
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    You might have to factor in the Matachines, the indigenous Aztec dancers. No. they don't dance during the Mass. They dance outside, before the Mass and it is very rythmic and solemn. It is, I believe, the oldest form of veneration to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

    Las Manitas is not your typical "Happy Birthday to You". The rough translation is 'These are your good morning greetings, like the ones that King David sang. We sing you this song with love and we sing these morning greetings for for you. Arise my love arise my lovely, see how the dawn now breaks. The birds are singing sweetly and now the sun is up. How beatiful is the morning on the day that you were born. They day you were born all of the flowers came in bloom. On the day of your baptism, all of the birds were singing."

    You could begin with O Sanctissima and then end with "Adios, O Virgen de Guadalupe" which is a rather solemn and beautiful hymn, or "Adios, Reyna del Cielo."
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    Try to avoid, if you can, Las Manitas de Tepeyac. It has a repetitive phrase at the end that changes with each verse. For example, it repeats words like "La Guadalupana, La Guadalupana, La Guadalupana..." for verse 1 and then "eran Mexicanos, eran Mexicanos, eran Mexicanos..." for another verse and then for the final verse, I think it is "ser Guadalupano, ser Guadalupano, ser Guadalupano..." It sounds like a ranchera song (Mexican version of a polka) when played on guitar. Playing this on the organ doesn't make it better. I heard it tonight at Mass and it was not a joyful noise.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    We're singing a shortened version of the most traditional - "O Virgen la mas hermosa." We'll do it as a "postlude" to the Vespers, even though it's not 5 a.m. I took the prayer and the reading from the 1959 LU (translated), antiphons and psalms from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary. With my schola, I practice an economy of effort - learn antiphons with a long shelf life and work to build a comfort level in chant that will get the heads out of the books.

    .
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    Oooh, you are making me go to confession. I envy your parish. I am afraid that I am stuck with the ranchera stuff for another year. What you have planned is incredible.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    No need for envy, benedictgal. It's our blessing and curse that my schola exists outside of a parish. A blessing because I can do pretty much whatever I want. A curse because we don't have the opportunity to sing at Mass (except in unusual circumstances). I've watched the ranchera style on YouTube and know that it's probably the type of music for which one has a great fondness thanks to childhood memories. Lacking the memories, it seems more likely to provoke headaches.
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    Believe me, I do not have fond memories of ranchera music. We didn't play it much at my house because it sounded like it came from a bar, not the kind of music that is fitting for Our Lady of Guadalupe.
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