Vexilla Regis
  • JennyJenny
    Posts: 147
    I want my little schola to learn the Vexilla Regis Prodeunt but noticed (belatedly) that the text for the hymn is different in the St. Gregory vs. the PBC. Some of the verses are almost the same but V1, for example, in St. G's is:

    Vexilla Regis prodeunt
    Fulget Crucis mysterium,
    Quo carne carnis Conditor
    Suspensus est patibulo.

    In the PBC, the first two lines are the same but v1 ends with:

    Qua vita morem pertulit,
    Et morte vitam protulit.

    Anybody know why? Is there a reason to prefer one over the other? (I know, I know, if they could read neumes, I would have just given them the PBC copy and I wouldn't be in this mess. But they don't, so I didn't and that's work for another day.)
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I am not sure about these specific differences, but the point of reference for hymns should be the newly revised Liber Hymnarius for both text and tune.
  • Gilbert
    Posts: 106
    The PBC's version reflects changes made by Pope Urban VIII in 1632 to the Roman Breviary. The current Liturgia Horarum has gone back to the original text. The footnote in the St. Gregory hymnal says the text was taken from the Graduale Romanum. I'm guessing that Pope Urban's changes only affected the Breviary, and not the music for the Mass?, and that is why the Graduale Romanum contained the older text when the St. Gregory Hymnal was published. In any case, the new Vesperale actually contains both versions of the hymns, so they are both most certainly valid. I'm not sure what the current Graduale Romanum contains, but I'm guessing that if it contains this hymn, it has the original text, since that is what the older graduale contained.
  • BGP
    Posts: 219
    Yes, I ran into this same thing a few years back. Gilbert is correct, the original words were restored in the vatacan edition of the gradual (reform of Pius X) but not in the breviary/antipiphonale (reform of Pius X) the liber usualis has the breviary version.

    diddo for Crux fidelis the Liber has the breviary Urban the viii version the Gradual has the medival (the 1962 gradual on Musica sacra has both) the newer 1974 gradual has a medeval version with slightlty different words than the older gradual.

    can you imagine back in the days before copy machines if some in a choir had the liber and others were using the gradual what chaos.
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