Missa Fons Bonitatis---good choice for Pentecost
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I've been looking for the most appropriate mass setting for Pentecost, and it seems that Mass II in the Kyriale, the Missa Fons Bonitatis, is a really felicitous choice. It's already a favorite of our schola because of the lovely cascading melismas in the Kyrie, but, thanks to an explanation by the incomparable Giovanni of Milan on YouTube, I realized the original tropes, while they refer to each of the members of the Trinity, refer esp. to the Holy Spirit in the three tropes of the final Kyrie:

    Kyrie, Spiritus alme, cohærens Patri Natoque, unius usiæ consistendo flans ab utroque: eleison
    Kyrie, qui baptizato in Jordanis unda Christo, effulgens specie columbina apparuisti: eleison
    Kyrie, ignis divine, pectora nostra succende, ut digni(e) pariter te laudare (proclamare) possimus semper: eleison

    Here's Giovanni singing the Kyrie Fons Bonitatis: (I really like his use of the recorder to play the melody--my husband also likes to use the recorder to teach the different parts to our choir.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iojFIUa14qU
    Thanked by 1Ioannes Andreades
  • Ioannes Andreades
    Posts: 310
    Where can you find the original tropes?
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I found it here with all the verses:

    http://dhspriory.org/thomas/CorpusChristiKyrie.gif

    I've never heard the Kyrie sung in Latin with tropes before. Does anyone still do that? I think it's an option in the Ordinary Form but even that is rare.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    A better copy can be found in Cantus Selecti on page 81* you can download this book here:

    http://media.musicasacra.com/books/cantus_selecti.pdf

    There is another book with all the troped Kyrie, can't remember the title at the moment, I don't think it is online.

    I believe that Troped Kyrie are banned in the EF... I think they are permitted in the OF.
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 997
    IMO a troped Kyrie such as Fons Bonitatis shouldn't be used at the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite either. It's true that the third form of the Pentitential Act allows for other invocations, but these always have the following form:

    V. [first invocation], Kyrie eleison.
    R. Kyrie eleison.
    V. [second invocation], Christe eleison.
    R. Christe eleison.
    V. [third and last invocation], Kyrie eleison.
    R. Kyrie eleison.

    The troped Kyrie doesn't have this form.
    Thanked by 3SkirpR MarkThompson JulieColl
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Thanks so much for the clarification! From what little I remember of having heard this once or twice at the OF Mass a long time ago, the celebrant seemed to have been composing the invocations off the top of his head and giving them his own ideological slant which wasn't the most comforting experience in the world.

    Maybe it's just as well that this option didn't catch on (although the original Latin tropes are beautiful.)
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