Origins of the Anglican Vidi Aquam, I Beheld Water, mode 6?
  • Coemgen
    Posts: 50
    What are the origins, ultimate and/or modern, of the mode 6 (not mode 8) melody of I Beheld Water (Vidi Aquam) formerly used by the Anglicans?

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    I venture to guess Francis Burgess has it in his English Gradual, for the Alleluia melody in his tonal version of the Mass Lesser Proper is identical to the Alleluia in this chant. But where did Burgess take it from?

    Is there an ultimate medieval source? It looks legitimately High or Late Medieval.
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  • OMagnumMysterium
    Posts: 259
    I sounds a lot like the Sanctus from Mass VII. Maybe a coincidence, maybe an adaptation.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    I have not seen this version before.
    Vidi aquam to the original chant melody is found in the St Dunstan's Kyriale,
    edited by Canon Winfred Douglas, which also contains all the plain chant masses and the Merbecke service all in English and chant notation.
    Copies may be had from Amazon.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • davido
    Posts: 942
    There is only one Vidi Aquam found in the Anglican use gradual. It is the usual melody in the 8th mode. You can find both volumes of the English gradual online at internet archive
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  • Coemgen
    Posts: 50
    I see four entries of the English Gradual at archive.org, but all are limited preview only.
  • davido
    Posts: 942
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  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 174
    It clearly is a modern adaptation by Burgess, and appears in THE ENGLISH GRADUAL, Part I: The Plainchant of the Ordinary. And yes, it is an adaptation of the Sanctus from Mass VII.

    Burgess also created an alleluia based on that same theme, that appears as the ONLY alleluia melody in The English Gradual, Part 2, the proper. Part 2 was in every Anglo-Catholic parish up until the liturgical changes in the 1960s (mother Rome caught the flu, and the Anglican communion got a cold).

    Part 1 didn't get much traction in the Episcopal Church, because the the St. Dunstan Kyrial (available on line) by Canon Winfred Douglas matched the 1928 Prayer Book. So The English Gradual Part 1 (which is actually a Kyriale) is not easy to find in the US. There is an earlier, and not very good form, available online.

    I don't seem to be able to upload a picture, so here is a link
    https://photos.app.goo.gl/LEkwSu468jPq4WFb8

    And, no, it isn't in the PLAINSONG GRADUAL edited by Burgess, which is, purportedly, authentic plainsong.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • davido
    Posts: 942
    Rob, what page does this chant appear in The English gradual Part I? It does not appear in the version online at internet archive.
  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 174
    It's on page x of this book.
    https://archive.org/details/englishgradual0000fran/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theater
    sneak a peak here https://photos.app.goo.gl/fQbBRsjE8sBL74Jn8
    I must have purchased my copy in England, maybe the RSCM used store at Addington Palace... in 1978. The little choir I was associated with could not handle the solemn Vidi. The congregation was accustomed to joining in on the Burgess Mode VI Alleluia, and were very happy to take their part in this.
  • davido
    Posts: 942
    Well, there it is!
    What a strange place in the book to put that chant.
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