"Gartan" started life as a tune for "Sancti Venite"
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    There are a couple of different Irish manuscript tunes for "Sancti Venite" that show up in the Danta De hymnal. (Not surprising, since the Irish believed "Sancti Venite" was an Irish Latin hymn, and had legends about it.) They're scavenged for hymn tunes along with all the rest.

    Anyway, I finally realized today that the reason the first "Sancte Venite" tune (the one from an MS from 1746) sounded familiar was that it was essentially the same tune as GARTAN, the Irish tune from Stanford-Petrie that's used for "Love Came Down at Christmas". And sure enough, you can sing the Latin to GARTAN (or its older version) very easily. It even brings out some (possibly Irish) assonantal features I'd never noticed before.

    http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/AnteMissam/SanctiVenite.html

    Since "Sancti Venite" is nice and short, and a good Communion hymn, you might want to bear this in mind. (Not that there's anything wrong with the chant tune of it, of course.)

    Neale's translation "Draw Nigh and Take the Body of the Lord" doesn't scan too well, though.
  • smt
    Posts: 33
    This thread is some years old, but I have several questions regarding "Sancti venite" and I thought this could be a good place to ask.

    I would like to sing "Sancti venite" in Latin in my parish. But all I know is the text and the recording by K. Ruhland on youtube. I haven't found any hymnal which gives the tune. Of course it's not that hard to write it down from the recording but I would love to know more about the tune(s) of "Sancti venite" (in Latin, not English).

    If I understand it correctly the original tune is not in the Bangor Antiphonary and thus has not survived. Afterwards the latin hymn was sung on different tunes. Do you know which one? Can you name me some sources or hymnals containing the hymn? And do you know the source for the version Ruhland recorded?

    Thanks for any help!
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    There is another thread : https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/9173/sancti-venite-christi-corpus-sumite/p1 . Whch ends with a reference to tunes in the Brebeuf hymnal.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • smt
    Posts: 33
    I had seen this thread, but if I understand it correctly the tunes are meant for the English translation and I am not simply interested in finding any tune which fits to the text, but wanted to know on which tune the Latin hymn is traditionally sung. But maybe I got this thread wrong?

    (And: Unfortunately I don't have access to an Brebeuf Hymnal.)

    Update: Ok, I see, it's also meant for the Latin text. But still, I was not looking for a random tune. E.g. the only tune which I can see online (the tenth in the Brebeuf Hymnal according to user "veromary"), "Christ ist erstanden", is simply impossible to use in Germany as it is so deeply linked to Easter.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    smt - The Brebeuf hymnal has various indexes online go to this one : https://www.ccwatershed.org/2020/07/28/8000-entries-snippets-index-for-new-hymnal/ open the search and type "sancti venite" and you will find all 10 tunes.

    Of course there was no tune in the Bangor Antiphonary, so any tune shown will a pairing made since the publication by Muratori.
  • smt
    Posts: 33
    Thanks a_f_hawkins, that was very helpful. Just to be sure – do I get the following points right:

    1) "Sancti venite" was completely forgotten, there is no unbroken tradition of singing it which dates back further than Muratori?
    2) After Muratori's discovery no tune became the standard tune for the Latin text? No tune can claim some "tradition" in connection with this text?

    Still I would be interested in two more points:

    1) Was there an important and influential publication of the Latin hymn with tune in the last 300 years? Or did just the English translation gain some fame and use, the Latin hymn remained more or less in the academic sphere?
    2) Do you maybe know the source of the tune which K. Ruhland chose for his recording?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-bL3Z1liy0

    Thanks in advance!
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