Urbs Beata Jerusalem, Colloquium edition
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,186
    David Poon has set the Urbs Beata Jerusalem chanted verses with the rhythm used by Wilko Brouwers' polyphonic choir.
    Urbs Beata Jerusalem.pdf
    39K
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Thanks for this. I was rather taken aback when the chant I heard in Mass was different from what was in the packet. I think everyone was!
  • David Poon
    Posts: 2
    FYI, in case anyone plans to use this: we sang this and the Lasso polyphony a whole tone lower (in B-flat Major).

    Also, can anyone can tell me from where the melody we used is? I found the same melody in this Victoria setting: http://www.upv.es/coro/victoria/pdf/Urbs_Beata_Jerusalem.pdf, but I couldn't trace the melody to a book, date or name...
  • BeckyOstermann
    Posts: 5
    Thanks for spending the time on this Dave!! I will be using it and I really appreciate it.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,189
    Also, can anyone can tell me from where the melody we used is?
    It's the (alternate) Mode I melody for "Pange lingua gloriosi" at the Procession for Corpus Christi, found in the 1961 LU at p. 950. Note the striking similarity (as well as the differences) between this melody and the more familiar Mode III melody (at p. 957).

    Quite some time ago, I used the Mode I melody in my motet setting of the first stanza of "Pange lingua gloriosi" which is available at CPDL. Composed a year or two later, my companion setting of "Tantum ergo sacramentum" uses the traditional Mode III melody.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,779
    It's the (alternate) Mode I melody for "Pange lingua gloriosi" at the Procession for Corpus Christi, found in the 1961 LU at p. 950.


    I am sure some of you would like some more information on the melody...

    It is sometimes sub-titled (in the Liber and other books), "ex libris Italiae", but I am told that this melody was very popular in England before the reformation. It is not known if it was originally an English melody that made it way to what is now Italy, or the other way round.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,189
    The Mode I melody appears in the Trent Codices tr88, published 1472-1477. See the transcription at CPDL, with "Pange lingua gloriosi" text underlay, but at the top of the page, the s2n an 4th stanzas of "Urbs beata Jerusalem" are given as an alternate text. This anonymous polyphonic work predates the start of the Reformation by nearly half a century, thereby suggesting that the melody is much older than that. Whether it might have originated in England is something that I was unaware of.
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