Salve Regina, Simple Tone Origins
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    I'm looking for a little background on this chant. I understand that all the simple tone versions of the Marian antiphons are relatively recent, the Alma and Ave Regina caelorum being 19th century simplifications done at Solesmes. The Regina Caeli is 18th century.

    What about the Salve Regina? All I can find is a reference to the Oratorians with no further details. Can some gifted musicologist provide a little more information.

    Many thanks,
    Mary Jane
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    I happen to be looking for similar information now. Answers.com has an article which states:

    The earliest manuscript source for the work is found in a Cistercian antiphoner formerly from the abbey of Movimondo near Milan, now housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale (F-pn n.a.1412) and compiled in the 1150s. The remainder of most manuscripts containing the Salve Regina datable to before the fourteenth century originate from Cistercian monasteries, and on this basis it is generally concluded that the Salve Regina originated in France among the Cistercian order. In the late middle ages, the Salve Regina was sung in a wide variety of liturgical contexts. The current placement of the anthem between the First Vespers of Trinity Sunday through the Saturday before Advent was established by the Dominican Order in the thirteenth century. Polyphonic settings of the Salve Regina were common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly among English and Franco-Flemish composers of sacred music. The Salve Regina remains popular even at the end of the twentieth century, where its English language equivalent "Hail holy queen" was included in a list of the top 20 most popular Catholic hymns. The common version of the Salve Regina is in the First Mode, identical still to the version recorded in the Movimondo manuscript, although there is a version in the Third Mode found in early German manuscripts that is performed with far less frequency.

    The Mode One version would appear to be the Solemn Tone, but the "popular" Simple Tone is Mode Five. Anyone?
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    Annoying, isn't it?

    I'm reading Craig Russell's book on the music of the California missions and he makes a strong case for a different and shorter hymn beginning with the same words serving as the usual sung at the missions and throughout Alta California.
  • BachLover2BachLover2
    Posts: 330
    ...could this simple version be a comp. by the ubiquitous henri du mont?
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