Chant-based Christmas
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Inspired by Kurt Poterack's excellent setting of Jesu dulcis memoria which we read at the colloquium, I'm working on putting together a concert program of unaccompanied alternatim and straight polyphony that incorporates actual chant tunes. The concert will be around Christmas time, but it can include music for other seasons as well. I hope to demonstrate that chant has always been the foundation of sacred music, from Binchois and Dufay to Durufle and beyond. Anyone have any suggestions for a 3 or 4 part choir? I've already looked through CPDL and some publishers, but there usually isn't an option to search by chant based or alternatim.
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    If I may piggyback on this request, is there a good collection of Advent chant/polyphony out there for a relatively beginner schola? Our pastor is death on Christmas carols before Christmas (a clever man there!) but we would like to offer him a Vespers-type evening presentation instead. Thanks.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Incantu,

    there is a good setting of Conditor alme siderum on CPDL that is alternatim. If you E-mail me I will send you the score. An arranger altered it somewhat for use with my choir a couple of years ago.

    There is also a 19th-century alternatim setting of Ave Maris Stella. The translation on the page is in German, but I don't remember the name of the composer. I also have a score for that and would be happy to share.
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Incantu,

    Yurodivi may be suggesting the Victoria Conditor, which I highly recommend.

    There is also an Ave maris stella that GIA publishes as being the work of Victoria, but I am not sure I believe it. CPDL is where I first found the piece, and it was there attributed to Anerio, which sounds more sensible to me when you look at the piece.

    Anyway, if you don’t already have an Ave maris stella, Anerio’s is worth doing. Email me if you want the score, since I believe the CPDL edition is no longer available. I believe Dufay and a few other guys also have nice alternatim settings of that one.

    Just today, too, I ran across the Robert White “Christe qui lux es”, an alternatim setting of a Compline hymn for Lent that I’d not seen before:http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/7/77/White_Christe_qui_lux_es.pdf

    Do post the concert program when you get it done! :)
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    I have nothing to contribute (I agree, incantu, I though Kurt setting of what must be the single loveliest chant hymn ever BREATHED, was wonderful,) but I hope this thread gets lots of action and lots of piggy-backing (thanks, priorstf.)
    Christmas seems to be a times when communities otherwise hostile to Latin, chant and "stuff that sounds oooooold," suddenly are open to tradition, even other people's...
    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Victoria has a alternatim setting of the lovely hymn, "Jesu/Christe Redemptor Omnium" (both titles have been used). They can be found through CPDL.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    No, not the Victoria -- this one is English and dates to about 1400. The Victoria is very nice.

    Sometimes late medieval music can be jarring to the modern ear, so I avoid programming more than one or two pieces on a given program.
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