Help, please: are these two different hymns, or just two different forms of the same hymn....?
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    I had intended to sing the Office hymn, Audi benigne Conditor, and found a hymn already in our binders -- the ones I inherited in January.

    Here are the texts. Can a Latin scholar or a Church history specialist or even a musician with appropriate history background unpuzzle this for me? They have slightly different tunes, too.

    Audi, benigne conditor,
    nostras preces cum fletibus,
    sacrata in abstinentia
    fusas quadragenaria

    Scrutator alme cordium,
    infirma tu scis virium;
    ad te reversis exhibe
    remissionis gratiam.

    Multum quidem peccavimus,
    sed parce confidentibus,
    tuique laude nominis
    confer medelam languidis.

    Sic corpus extra conteri
    dona per abstinentiam,
    jejunet ut mens sobria
    a labe prorsus criminum.

    Praesta, beata Trinitas,
    concede simplex Unitas,
    ut fructuosa sint tuis
    haec parcitatis munera. Amen


    Versus


    Audi, benigne Conditor,
    nostras preces cum fletibus,
    in hoc sacro jejunio
    fusas quadragenario.

    Scrutator alme cordium
    infirma tu scis virium
    ad te reversis exhibe
    remissionis gratiam.

    Multum quidem peccavimus
    sed parce confidentibus
    ad nominis laudem tui
    confer medelam languidis.

    Concede nostrum conteri
    corpus per abstinentiam
    culpae ut relinquant pabulum
    jejuna corda criminum.

    Praesta, beata Trinitas,
    concede, simplex Unitas;
    ut fructuosa sint tuis
    jejuniorum munera. Amen.
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 217
    The first text is the result of the liturgical "reforms" carried out under Pope Urban VIII, who also altered some of the texts of the Missal to conform to the Vulgate. The second text appears to be the unreformed pre-Urbanite hymnus antiquus. As for the melody, the latter is probably the monastic version rather than the secular. I would say that the former is simply a worse version of the same hymn, not an essentially different hymn altogether.
    Thanked by 1Chris Garton-Zavesky
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Other melodies here, https://societyofstbede.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/1st-sunday-of-lent/
    The lower version looks at first glance to be the original text. Will check in detail later.
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    The lower version (line 3 "in hoc sacro jejunio") is the Urbanite text. The upper is the original/restored text in the current Liber Hymnarius. Have checked a few sources:
    Here:: https://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/AudiBC.html
    Here : http://www.cathcorn.org/hotbam/48.html
    And my copies of the '83 LH and Joseph Connelly's 1954 Hymns of the Roman Liturgy.
  • FKulash
    Posts: 79
    The first version you posted (third line: "sacrata in abstinentia") is the older version; and the second (third line: "in hoc sacro jejunio") is the version Pope Urban VIII issued in 1631. Most of the hymns in the breviary were revised at that time: in some, only a word or two was changed, in others only a line or two was left unchanged. Most or the breviaries and hymnals published between 1631 and 1970 have Urban's revisions. This goes for translations as well: translators like John Mason Neale and Edward Caswall translated what was currently being used in the Roman breviary at that time.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Hmm.


    The first text is the result of the liturgical "reforms" carried out under Pope Urban VIII


    The first version you posted (third line: "sacrata in abstinentia") is the older version; and the second (third line: "in hoc sacro jejunio") is the version Pope Urban VIII issued in 1631.


    Square circle?
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 217
    Sorry, I told you the exact opposite last night! The bottom text, with the fourth stanza beginning "concede," is the reformed version, not the other way around.

    1909 Hymnarium Cisterciense
    1 in hoc
    3 ad laudem
    4 sic corpus
    5 jejuniorum

    1912 Antiphonale Romanum - reformed
    1 in hoc
    3 ad nominis
    4 concede
    5 jejuniorum

    1912 Antiphonale Romanum Hymni antiqui appendix
    1 in hoc
    3 ad laudem
    4 sic corpus
    5 jejuniorum

    1933 Antiphonale Monasticum
    1 in hoc
    3 ad laudem
    4 sic corpus
    5 jejuniorum

    1933 Dominican Antiphonarium
    1 in hoc
    3 ad laudem
    4 sic corpus
    5 jejuniorum

    2009 Antiphonale Romanum II
    1 sacrata
    3 laude nominis
    4 sic corpus
    5 haec parcitatis

    The new Solesmes books didn't simply restore the unreformed versions. In some instances that's what they did, but further alterations were made elsewhere, and some stanzas were omitted altogether. If you're actually singing it liturgically for Vespers, use the version required by the liturgical books. If you're using the hymn as a supplementary chant during Mass, use whichever one you want.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Chris Garton-Zavesky
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