There was a period in the 19th century when some composers looked to the 16th century for inspiration. The Christmas Carol "Ding Dong Merily On High" is the same tune as "Bransle L'Official" by Arbeu and "What Child is This" is the tune from "Greensleves". Plus "Coventry Carol" was revived from a manuscript description of an English Christmas time mask.
Thank you for the excellent video. Tim Hart (Steeleye Span) was the son of an Anglican clergyman so he probably sang in the church choir--a vicar's son with a good voice isn't going to get much choice!--and probably encountered all sorts of sacred music. This may well have included the Woodward version of Gaudete.
13:41 , 14:24 : Most people in Britain and Ireland would immediately associate that other _Piae Cantiones_ melody with its Victorian setting “Good King Wenceslas” (Roud 24754): maybe that’s part of why it never caught on as a choice for the verses of “Gaudete”.
I was first introduced to Gaudete by Steeleye Span in 1974 and was transfixed by it. In addition to becoming an instant fan of the group, I ran out and purchased a copy of Below the Salt specifically so I could transcribe the song, for which I was unable to find a copy at that time. Hearing the history of the piece has been really special and I thank Early Music Sources for creating this video.
Steeleye Span was my first introduction to it as well. I have loved the tune ever since and eagerly listen to any version of it that I can find. I love this video so much to hear its history!
I am so happy you mentioned the popular and influential Steeleye Span version. It's been a favorite of mine since the '70s. Steeleye Span deserve much credit for popularizing older British folk and early music.
Steeleye Span opened the world of older English folkmusic to me too. An American at the time, and a bluegrass lover, I then began listening to Irish and Scottish, and soon everything from Kazakstan and Persia westward to the Atlantic. Traditional folk music simply resonates wirh me.
I had a copyright claim for this on my channel once - there was a section of a daily vlog with three of us singing it live at home in a rehearsal and, boom - copyright claim!! I thought I'd have been pretty safe with this one, it being hundreds of years old, but it claimed that the melody was owned by someone in Brazil... maybe I should have disputed it?
Had the same playing Mozart flute concerto, like I'm flattered they think I sound like a CD but like ofc two people playing music from hundreds of years ago are going to sound similar doesn't mean it's not out of copyright 😭
Copyright laws differ from country to country, but some people do search for “ out of copyright” material and then obtain it somehow. You could complain to RUclips about it, because it totally does not make sense that anyone could obtain a copyright for this ancient music.
You have to dispute it! I'm a tenor and I post a lot of videos of me singing, with backing tracks made by myself and always there's a copyright strike. Those mofos want to make money with my own work! And many times, while disputing, they're so f*ing cocky to answer that they don't agree with my dispute and they continue the claim. I hate them and I hate youtube. That's why I stopped posting my music on RUclips and I'm planning to close my account.
It has quickly become an habit for you to create and offer incredibly excellent content. One of the most intelligent and enlightening RUclips channels that I know. Many thanks, and I still hope for more Sweelinck. 🙂
My first exposure was the Steeleye Span version, which completely transfixed me and I had to learn the tune. From the same manuscript you also showed a brief bit of "Tempus adest floridum," a spring-time carol, the melody of which is now used for the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslaus. Your coverage of the history of this lovely tune was most rewarding, thanks
"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" comes from a poem by the ancient Roman poet Catullus. Classical music doesn't often make use of ancient text lke this, so it's quite astonishing to see it applied, *while preserving the original metre with correct syllable lengths* . "Vitam quae faciant" is from Martial, another ancient Roman poet. You can see elisions ("mea Lesbia‿atque‿amemus") in action, which are common in Italian ("el grillo‿è buon cantore"), Spanish and French lyrics, but not in so-called "ecclesiastical Latin" (no one does "solvet saeclum‿in favilla"). Compare with the ecclesiastical "Gaudete, gaudete" setting which doesn't reflect classical Latin syllable length at all (gau- should always be long, and -te short, etc.).
Ah, but Maddy's no Roman: Kilburn in those days was an Irish Terrorist haunt (just a few years later, I got the IRA to explain what had happened to Bob Nairac) and for all that Folk was somewhat revolutionary, it most decidedly was NOT insurrectionist.
It's also interesting because Catullus and Martial could both be pretty "spicy", and were decidedly pre-Christian, which makes for another interesting contrast with the usual Gaudete.
@@saltrocklamp199 Your idea of pre-Christian is wrong. You're looking towards Celibacy, which only started c1200, possibly in direct response to Eleanor of Aquitaine's Chivalry, and the influence of Arab culture on the West, particularly in music. Look at the distaff side, in Heloise' compositions in the Paraclete, echoed in the Carminae Burana. From Chivalry comes the entire Beghard movement, and thence Ruusbroec's conflict with Bloemardine, on the former end headed towards Groot's Windesheim and Calvinist Protestantism, and the latter, towards intellectual liberty, stemming from the musical facet of the quadrivium.
Not uncommon at all. In the Renaissance era, metric poems in latin by classical authors as well as by humanist poets were definitely sung with music preserving the correct metre. As an example, check out Odae cum harmoniis (1548) by Johannes Honterus. Whether in classical or ecclesiastical latin, elision/synalepha happens with vowels, there is no way of merging “saeclum‿in“.
Thanks for this history. I first heard GAUDETE when I saw Steeleye Span in LA in 1976. Immediately falling in love with it. And I still love hearing it! ❤🎉
Steeleye Span's melody for the verse is found almost identically as a breton folk dance tune/song in France. I'd always assumed they had some gregorian common origin, but it seems like it's more complex than I thought ^^ thanks for your videos !
I love this channel! Thank you so much Maestro Rotem & team, for clarifying things to me that my music theory professors could not!! Merry & blessed Christmas to all 😊
When i was little, the headmaster at my montessori school, a huge history lover, taught the 4th-6th graders to sing this in the first 4 part harmony demonstrated here. It has always lived in my head, because of listening to all the older kids practice it on the playground before the xmas party. I remember them singing it beautifully and had no idea anything else about it till now. Thanksbfor dusting off a very old childhood xmas memory!
What a fantastic video and a fantastic channel. While I've been watching these videos for the last few years, I just completed a university music literature class covering ancient to baroque music, so I'm understanding even more of these concepts. Thanks so much!
This got an immediate subscribe. Simply terrific research, commentary, and performances. Full disclosure, I have degrees in music, I'm a life-long choral musician, and I compose choral music. All of these help me appreciate what you've done in this video. My humble thanks!!
I recall reading an article in the British musical press in the 1970s where members of Steeleye Span admitted that, unable to source the performing material, they had simply lifted Gaudete directly from listening to the Clerkes of Oxenford LP, and transcribing a version from it. Hence the differences.
@@EarlyMusicSources That could be difficult! 50 years ago, and although I remember it as 'fact' (and it led me to seek out and buy the Clerkes of Oxenford LP), I cannot recall the source. It was likely the UK edition of Melody Maker, as this was the only popular music magazine we had back then. Or it might even have been a comment from the band on the BBC radio Folk show. Sorry to be so vague, but it is 'one of those things that I have always known', but I'm afraid it's only hearsay evidence! You could always contact Maddy Prior of Steeleye and ask her!
@@EarlyMusicSources You could always send a query to Steeleye Span and ask them directly. Maddy Prior who was their vocalist when they first performed the song is still their vocalist today 50 years or so later!
Fascinating! This is as much a great look into the differences between centuries, as to what's okay to change and what isn't; not to mention the differences in performance practices. I've had the pleasure of singing Gaudete - another arrangement entirely, quite modern and no apology about it. I had no idea how deep the history of the tune went! Thank you for the upload! I hope you all enjoy a beautiful, peaceful, and musical holiday!!
Amazing video! One thing I find really interesting (and telling) is how the versions in A minor are notated. In the early ones, they have no key signature and no accidentals--they look pure-Aeolian, in contrast to the G minor ones' apparent Dorianness. Often that wouldn't have mattered in actual sound because of the ficta E-flats in the ones, though that one bit of organ tablature did use E-naturals! By contrast, in the modern editions, the ones in A minor are always a little weird--some have a sharp in the signature but then put accidental naturals on all of the Fs, while some have no signature but put accidental sharps on all of the Fs. Both are awkward results on just transposing the G Dorian one according to modern sensibilities, rather than according to the Renaissance's notational flexibility.
I wanted to add that it seems very very likely to me that this melody was originally written to pair with Classical Latin poetry - those Latin text examples are in hendecasyllables (“Vivamus, mea Lesbia” is a quite famous Catullus poem) and the rhythms are exactly aligned with the quantitative meter.
Thank you so much for this. As a church musician of many decades (!) standing, I have loved the joyous angularity of "Gaudete" as a perfect sentiment in anticipation of the Nativity.
I contributed to the Christmas album of a local choir, All Hayle to the Days by the Magpie Consort (2005). I played classical guitar and mandolin and did some arranging for those instruments of material set by director Sheena Philips. An a capella version of Gaudete also appeared on that album. I'm pretty certain Sheena used the same setting used by the King's Singers.
Woodward's approach is that of the Oxford Movement, extremely conservative and High Church Anglican, to the point where John Henry Newman can migrate from Canterbury to Rome with little difficulty, in the wider context of the Birmingham Triennial Festival, and the wider corpus of Eucharistic compositions that engendered. However, while Elgar's taking one fabulist approach with Gerontius, Vaughan Williams is quietly subverting it by smuggling the old folk corpus supposedly ousted with the West Gallery Band, well-lubricated from the pub overnight, by putting their tunes back into the Church, in The English Hymn Book, a response to Hymns Ancient and Modern. He was victorious, and never more than in the Chapels, where the Wesleyan Methodists disdained such authoritarianism: and this is precisely Maddy Prior's personal background in Kilburn. She now works year and year about, Steeleye Span and Carnival Band, and it's been my huge pleasure to work behind her in the latter configuration. One major factor beyond this is the renaissance of the Village Carols events at this time of year, firstly in the area south of Sheffield, now also in Kent and Sussex, where folksong in and around Christmas includes some glorious ghost stories. This pre-Enlightenment heritage is anathema to the Devotio Moderna, for all that it was rooted in Windesheim and Ruusbroec's Groenendael before that.
It's also useful to note that those of us in the 1970s who were part of the Early Music movement were faced with inappropriate instruments, and so generated the idea of Historically Informed Performance. I'm the bridge, in passing, between Sir Geraint Evans and the teenage David Roblou, who went on to become the Baroque Voice Coach in Guildhall of preference, per Catherine Bott.
@@deedeequast9148 They're mostly classic Scottish and Border works, but you'll find the odd Playford in there too. This was followed by a commercially exploitative something produced by Mike Batt, which a hardcore pre-1800 type like me found graunchy. But then again, I made my living doing something truly serious.
As a consummate fan of the Christmas season and especially Christmas music I'm overjoyed to discover a new (or old) Christmas song for the first time! Thank you for doing a video on this delightful piece and for highlighting the intricacies that make it work. Merry Christmas Early Music Sources!
There's some amazing renaissance Christmas carols out there. Have you heard "There is no rose" and "Es ist ein ros entsprungen"? If you haven't you should check them out. The latter in particular, sung by a good choir, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck by its sheer beauty. Or I think so, anyway, that is somewhat in the ear of the beholder.
@@lizziesmusicmakingI was in a choir many years ago that sang "There is no rose of such virtue,. As is the rose that bare Jesu...." I have never found a recording anywhere.
How fascinating! It has bothered me for years. A great start to Christmas day. Thank you for this, and all your scholarship, insight and wonderful singing.
Outstanding, as always. A tiny bit of tangentially related information: Besides the Senfl version, whose text is based on Martial, there is also a version by Jacques Arcadelt that has a rather free treatment of the original tune. I found it in "Livre septième", an exceptional collection of four-part songs by Pierre Phalèse. It seems that it came to serve essentially as the profane psalter of the Huguenots. It was reprinted more than 30 times over a period of 100 years, before being forgotten. The Arcadelt setting is present at least in the (digitized) 1570 and 1594 editions. In the 1570 edition, this setting is followed by "Ut flos in sæptis secretus nascitur hortis", which may be a second part or a response by an anonymous composer. I have no idea where the text is from.
@@EarlyMusicSources I just realized that this song appears to be present in (almost?) all extant editions of this book. For anyone having trouble finding the book, which is absolutely worth checking out: Perhaps the best edition is the 1594 one by Pierre Phalèse the son at Bibliothèque Nationale de France. This is from after a thorough revision that improved the repertoire considerably and put everything into a very deliberate order, sorted by modes and topics. The earlier 1570 edition by Pierre Phalèse the father is at Universitätsbibliothek Rostock. Both are avilable online as digital facsimiles. Google Books has the inferior 1644 edition by Sweelinck, which apparently served as a school book for Dutch speakers and has a lot of Dutch songs for a different number of voices. Comparing these versions, you can clearly see the explosion of printed accidentals. (Maybe it is motivated in part by people like Sweelinck playing keyboard instruments from the individual parts? Standardized, printed accidentals no doubt made it easier for voice and accompaniment to agree on the same solution to the musica ficta.) If there is any interest, I can provide a download link to the draft of my modern (careful layman's) edition based on the 1594 version plus the 5 additional songs of the 1570 version.
Hello and thank you very much for the detailed information! Your channel is so helpful to me 😊 The melody in 14:51 is found in the swiss catholic song book (Katholisches Gesangbuch) no. 313 as a song for advent "Tauet, Himmel aus den Höhn". According to the information below, the melody is by Jens Spangenberg, Erfurt 1544.
I just find it basically inpossible to hear the tenor as the melody unless it is played or sung significantly louder than the other parts. Given the voices used back then, I suspect this is how they were sung, as the higher parts would all be in falsetto or by younger singers, and thus quieter. Well, except when it was sung an octave higher with all other parts as an accompaniment. Then dynamics didn't matter.
I understand what you mean. We hear it from a modern point of view in which the bass defines the harmony and the top voice carries the tune. Since more or less the beginning of the Baroque era, harmony has been read from the bottom up and since the highest voice is the one that stands out, the principal melody will usually be found there. It's a very audience-friendly way of doing things. But concepts in the Middle Ages were very different. The principle melody would be the obligatory line held by the tenor (from 'tenere' to hold) and voices above and below were added to that. Since music was not conceived specifically as something to be heard by an audience the concept of a most prominent voice wasn't really an issue. The music would often be heard only by the performers and each singer would hear their own voice as the most prominent one. In 1582, when this song was printed, the style and concepts were already quite similar to the ones we have today but the tenor voice would still usually have the original melody.
@@nigelhaywood9753 I don't doubt you. But I note the higher voices also tended to use lighter singers and often encouraged the lighter falsetto mechanism. So it wouldn't surprise me if those upper parts were weaker, like in modern barbershop music.
Thank you thank you!! This was fascinating--I've been thrilled with the early music world since the 1960s, via my musicologist father and his early music performing courses at university, as well as seeing live performances of Thomas Binkley's group, Studio der Fruhe Musik, and Noah Greenberg's New York Pro Musica. Will look for your other work here on RUclips!
My first hearing of it was Steeleye Span as a teenager. Then in my 30's I joined a choir and requested we do it ( we did and I loved it). Seeing this makes me want to sing in a choir again to revisit it
Thanks for the history of this Christmas anthem. In the Vermont (USA) churches where I am choirmaster (and sometime pastor) we often use the "Gaudete" as a choral response after the reading of the Nativity stories -- as you imply may have been its original use.
I wrote a few comments after reading such expert analysis of minute details that are way above my head only to say that It is mostly the English Ts and Ds that stand out. I sang with friends in the US who did not hear "Venichay adowemus" as odd. Conversely, teaching the English sounds to Romance language speakers is quite a feat. One,two,three may turn into Juan chew tree, and in 1970 in Cambridge a Spanish girl told me she mastered the consonants but had trouble with her bowels.
What a wonderful Christmas Day video, at least it was when I watched it. Fascinating that what we think of as the tune is the accompaniment to the cantus firmus, so many traditional Christmas carols probably originated in the same way.
Thank you! This was fascinating. 😊 I've loved this tune since hearing the Steeleye Span forty odd years ago and began practicing a version on my gurdy just before Xmas this year.
Thank you for the explanations - I love this song, as sung today, didn't know about its origins. Very interesting! I'd like to sing it in every kind as it was in the years passing by
Gaudete with Good King Wenceslas verses? I’m glad that didn’t catch on! Thanks SO much for your thorough research and presentation of this wonderful story!
This is the first time I've gotten to know this piece in a serious manner. This reminded me of a great comedic edit of a King's Singers recording on RUclips with the video title _Gaudete Shreds_ that I can very much recommend to watch.
Another amazing video. Thank you so much, and merry Christmas 😊 I'm looking for some renaissance or medieval Easter themed songs for solo voice to perform in an easter concert (bass voice). All suggestions will be very helpful.
In the choral life of modern Stockholm, it is very common to sing the Ward swingle arrangement, which is still titled Audete, Gaudete due to the fact that they misread the original text and missed the illuminated capital G letter. Bizarre. The arrangement contains the Steeleye Span verses, which we thought were original music from the 16th century. I was surprised to learn about Rostock, I always thought that Piae Cantiones originated from Turku (Åbo) in Finland, which was Swedish at the time and still speaks Swedish (the Nyland region).
Thanks. That was a great overview, a historical perspective. It strikes me that most variants have an interpretive similarity which binds them all into a recognisable “sound”, that of this beloved song.
Thanks for this interesting video (and the good pronounciation of german words)! I personally like the King's Singers arrangement best. Greetings from Leipzig :)
You are amazing. I wanted a video like this for so many years, thank you so much! As much as I love the rephrain, I always felt there was something amiss about the verse melody of Gaudete commonly used. I much prefer the last version you show, with it taken directly from the other song with identical lyrics.
Thank you very much for your fascinating documentary 🙏🏾 I made an arrangement for an orchestra in Russia many years ago, and I would surely have benefited from knowing what your research has uncovered ❤
Thank you for your very interesting and informative dissertation. While all of the various arrangements are recognisable and enjoyable, the Steeleye Span version still sounds best to my ears. I also often hear criticism of Steeleye Span by Classic Latin pedants for not using the "correct" pronunciation of the words. However, this carol was written in late Mediaeval Latin and the pronunciation is correct for that period.
Except the English D and T sounds and Virginae sung like in like a Virgin. Great vocals, though. I opened for Tim and Maddy at the 1970 Ipswich Folk Festival and was so impressed I bought their First LPs and Steeleye later. Maddy talked to me!...well She held a pint of ale and asked gently "Where's the loo?"
I just saw this video and was about to say that. I have listened to them since their first CD in the 90s and that’s the only place I had ever heard this piece before.
Very, very nice and in depth historic analysis of this little but important song. I would have loved to hear you sing the complete Gaudete, with the 15th Czech verses and the ficta. The latter seem to have been sort of lost cause of personal choices of older influencial editors, like our mr Woodward.
I've honestly gone off Steeleye Span's version of Gaudete mostly because of their butchered Latin pronunciation, but I didn't realise just how heavy their influence is on how it's sung today. The various different tunes for the verses is an eye opener and I now have quite a few curveballs to throw at my choir the next time we do it!
It's just Latin with a kind of generic folky-English accent that was prevalent amongst English folksingers of the time. There's no tradition that I know of, in which latin texts are sung with a studied, academically authentic accent. Latin texts are usually sung with ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation which is probably no more accurate than Steeleye Span's version.
@@nigelhaywood9753Maybe not more authentic but at least without the English Ts and D's and the Like a Virgin sound on Virginae. Well, Americans say Noter Daime, pronounced like Bogey in " blame the dame"
@14:50 isn't that tune from Orff's 'Carmina Burana'? Ot perhaps from whatever inspired Orff. I'm clearly no musicologist, but it might be an idea worth considering.
The ficta from the 17th century source is interesting. In the past couple of years our choir director has suggested singing Palestrina with just the normal rules of Musica Ficta applied, rather than rules specific to Palestrina, on the assumption that Palestrina’s music accrued altered notes during its unbroken performance tradition. We sang the Missa Papae Marcelli, and there was only one chromatic alteration suggested in the score that I really missed. The other non-standard alterations just made the music sound closer to Anerio or Phillips…
The "Tempus Adest" song at 13:50 has the same melody as the "Good King Wenceslas" Christmas carol . Very interesting to incidentally find it here.
There was a period in the 19th century when some composers looked to the 16th century for inspiration. The Christmas Carol "Ding Dong Merily On High" is the same tune as "Bransle L'Official" by Arbeu and "What Child is This" is the tune from "Greensleves". Plus "Coventry Carol" was revived from a manuscript description of an English Christmas time mask.
I was going to mention the same thing!
@@theoriemeister 😀
I came here to say this
Thank you for the excellent video. Tim Hart (Steeleye Span) was the son of an Anglican clergyman so he probably sang in the church choir--a vicar's son with a good voice isn't going to get much choice!--and probably encountered all sorts of sacred music. This may well have included the Woodward version of Gaudete.
13:41 , 14:24 : Most people in Britain and Ireland would immediately associate that other _Piae Cantiones_ melody with its Victorian setting “Good King Wenceslas” (Roud 24754): maybe that’s part of why it never caught on as a choice for the verses of “Gaudete”.
I'm from New England, and that's definitely what I hear.
I was first introduced to Gaudete by Steeleye Span in 1974 and was transfixed by it. In addition to becoming an instant fan of the group, I ran out and purchased a copy of Below the Salt specifically so I could transcribe the song, for which I was unable to find a copy at that time. Hearing the history of the piece has been really special and I thank Early Music Sources for creating this video.
Steeleye Span was my first introduction to it as well. I have loved the tune ever since and eagerly listen to any version of it that I can find. I love this video so much to hear its history!
The unexpected interest non-classical musicians showed for classical music in the 60s/70s has started to intrigue me more and more.
I am so happy you mentioned the popular and influential Steeleye Span version. It's been a favorite of mine since the '70s. Steeleye Span deserve much credit for popularizing older British folk and early music.
Steeleye Span opened the world of older English folkmusic to me too. An American at the time, and a bluegrass lover, I then began listening to Irish and Scottish, and soon everything from Kazakstan and Persia westward to the Atlantic. Traditional folk music simply resonates wirh me.
I had a copyright claim for this on my channel once - there was a section of a daily vlog with three of us singing it live at home in a rehearsal and, boom - copyright claim!! I thought I'd have been pretty safe with this one, it being hundreds of years old, but it claimed that the melody was owned by someone in Brazil... maybe I should have disputed it?
Ahh haaaa. The verse :) (I watched this in two chunks and commented early!)
Had the same playing Mozart flute concerto, like I'm flattered they think I sound like a CD but like ofc two people playing music from hundreds of years ago are going to sound similar doesn't mean it's not out of copyright 😭
Copyright laws differ from country to country, but some people do search for “ out of copyright” material and then obtain it somehow. You could complain to RUclips about it, because it totally does not make sense that anyone could obtain a copyright for this ancient music.
You have to dispute it! I'm a tenor and I post a lot of videos of me singing, with backing tracks made by myself and always there's a copyright strike. Those mofos want to make money with my own work! And many times, while disputing, they're so f*ing cocky to answer that they don't agree with my dispute and they continue the claim. I hate them and I hate youtube. That's why I stopped posting my music on RUclips and I'm planning to close my account.
I got a copyright claim on my channel for a piece I composed myself. I decided to be a nice guy and not sue myself. None of it makes sense.
It has quickly become an habit for you to create and offer incredibly excellent content. One of the most intelligent and enlightening RUclips channels that I know. Many thanks, and I still hope for more Sweelinck. 🙂
My first exposure was the Steeleye Span version, which completely transfixed me and I had to learn the tune. From the same manuscript you also showed a brief bit of "Tempus adest floridum," a spring-time carol, the melody of which is now used for the Christmas carol Good King Wenceslaus. Your coverage of the history of this lovely tune was most rewarding, thanks
"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" comes from a poem by the ancient Roman poet Catullus. Classical music doesn't often make use of ancient text lke this, so it's quite astonishing to see it applied, *while preserving the original metre with correct syllable lengths* . "Vitam quae faciant" is from Martial, another ancient Roman poet. You can see elisions ("mea Lesbia‿atque‿amemus") in action, which are common in Italian ("el grillo‿è buon cantore"), Spanish and French lyrics, but not in so-called "ecclesiastical Latin" (no one does "solvet saeclum‿in favilla").
Compare with the ecclesiastical "Gaudete, gaudete" setting which doesn't reflect classical Latin syllable length at all (gau- should always be long, and -te short, etc.).
Ah, but Maddy's no Roman: Kilburn in those days was an Irish Terrorist haunt (just a few years later, I got the IRA to explain what had happened to Bob Nairac) and for all that Folk was somewhat revolutionary, it most decidedly was NOT insurrectionist.
I saw the elisions too. Strange
It's also interesting because Catullus and Martial could both be pretty "spicy", and were decidedly pre-Christian, which makes for another interesting contrast with the usual Gaudete.
@@saltrocklamp199 Your idea of pre-Christian is wrong. You're looking towards Celibacy, which only started c1200, possibly in direct response to Eleanor of Aquitaine's Chivalry, and the influence of Arab culture on the West, particularly in music. Look at the distaff side, in Heloise' compositions in the Paraclete, echoed in the Carminae Burana. From Chivalry comes the entire Beghard movement, and thence Ruusbroec's conflict with Bloemardine, on the former end headed towards Groot's Windesheim and Calvinist Protestantism, and the latter, towards intellectual liberty, stemming from the musical facet of the quadrivium.
Not uncommon at all. In the Renaissance era, metric poems in latin by classical authors as well as by humanist poets were definitely sung with music preserving the correct metre. As an example, check out Odae cum harmoniis (1548) by Johannes Honterus.
Whether in classical or ecclesiastical latin, elision/synalepha happens with vowels, there is no way of merging “saeclum‿in“.
Gaudete's been stuck in my head all week and now I get a video about it recommended? The algorithm is listening to my thoughts now...
Me too!
Scary when that happens!
Merry Christmas, Mr Rotem and the Early Music Sources crew, and a blessed new year! Thank you for the wonderful information and timeless music.
Thanks for this history. I first heard GAUDETE when I saw Steeleye Span in LA in 1976. Immediately falling in love with it. And I still love hearing it! ❤🎉
Steeleye Span's melody for the verse is found almost identically as a breton folk dance tune/song in France. I'd always assumed they had some gregorian common origin, but it seems like it's more complex than I thought ^^ thanks for your videos !
I love this channel! Thank you so much Maestro Rotem & team, for clarifying things to me that my music theory professors could not!! Merry & blessed Christmas to all 😊
When i was little, the headmaster at my montessori school, a huge history lover, taught the 4th-6th graders to sing this in the first 4 part harmony demonstrated here. It has always lived in my head, because of listening to all the older kids practice it on the playground before the xmas party. I remember them singing it beautifully and had no idea anything else about it till now. Thanksbfor dusting off a very old childhood xmas memory!
What a fantastic video and a fantastic channel. While I've been watching these videos for the last few years, I just completed a university music literature class covering ancient to baroque music, so I'm understanding even more of these concepts.
Thanks so much!
Vielen Dank für all die gescheiten, witzigen und schönen Videos! 💌 ( Das Schwein ist so klasse! ) ( Die Mütze!!!)
This got an immediate subscribe. Simply terrific research, commentary, and performances. Full disclosure, I have degrees in music, I'm a life-long choral musician, and I compose choral music. All of these help me appreciate what you've done in this video. My humble thanks!!
I recall reading an article in the British musical press in the 1970s where members of Steeleye Span admitted that, unable to source the performing material, they had simply lifted Gaudete directly from listening to the Clerkes of Oxenford LP, and transcribing a version from it. Hence the differences.
Wow! Can you try and find that article?
@@EarlyMusicSources That could be difficult! 50 years ago, and although I remember it as 'fact' (and it led me to seek out and buy the Clerkes of Oxenford LP), I cannot recall the source. It was likely the UK edition of Melody Maker, as this was the only popular music magazine we had back then. Or it might even have been a comment from the band on the BBC radio Folk show. Sorry to be so vague, but it is 'one of those things that I have always known', but I'm afraid it's only hearsay evidence! You could always contact Maddy Prior of Steeleye and ask her!
@@EarlyMusicSources You could always send a query to Steeleye Span and ask them directly. Maddy Prior who was their vocalist when they first performed the song is still their vocalist today 50 years or so later!
i will probably never get any better at music, but i love this channel and learning about the history. thank you, and happy holidays...
Fascinating! This is as much a great look into the differences between centuries, as to what's okay to change and what isn't; not to mention the differences in performance practices. I've had the pleasure of singing Gaudete - another arrangement entirely, quite modern and no apology about it. I had no idea how deep the history of the tune went!
Thank you for the upload! I hope you all enjoy a beautiful, peaceful, and musical holiday!!
My commentary is not worth much, except as a byte in a RUclips logarithm. I love your videos and subject matter.
Amazing video! One thing I find really interesting (and telling) is how the versions in A minor are notated. In the early ones, they have no key signature and no accidentals--they look pure-Aeolian, in contrast to the G minor ones' apparent Dorianness. Often that wouldn't have mattered in actual sound because of the ficta E-flats in the ones, though that one bit of organ tablature did use E-naturals! By contrast, in the modern editions, the ones in A minor are always a little weird--some have a sharp in the signature but then put accidental naturals on all of the Fs, while some have no signature but put accidental sharps on all of the Fs. Both are awkward results on just transposing the G Dorian one according to modern sensibilities, rather than according to the Renaissance's notational flexibility.
I wanted to add that it seems very very likely to me that this melody was originally written to pair with Classical Latin poetry - those Latin text examples are in hendecasyllables (“Vivamus, mea Lesbia” is a quite famous Catullus poem) and the rhythms are exactly aligned with the quantitative meter.
(That’s as opposed to the vast majority of music in Latin, which have Vulgar Latin texts with qualitative meters.)
My Renaissance group sang the Steeleye Span arrangement in the mid 1970s when it first came out. It was A joy then and still is now.
Thank you so much for this. As a church musician of many decades (!) standing, I have loved the joyous angularity of "Gaudete" as a perfect sentiment in anticipation of the Nativity.
I contributed to the Christmas album of a local choir, All Hayle to the Days by the Magpie Consort (2005). I played classical guitar and mandolin and did some arranging for those instruments of material set by director Sheena Philips. An a capella version of Gaudete also appeared on that album. I'm pretty certain Sheena used the same setting used by the King's Singers.
Thank you for giving me à Christmas smile. Merry Christmas to all. Gaudete!
I have sung many versions of this hymn and have always loved it. Thanks you for sharing its unique history!
Wonderful song. I play it every other year at my piano studio's Christmas recital.
Happy holidays, Elam and everyone involved! Thank you for another fabulous year of wonderful music :)
Woodward's approach is that of the Oxford Movement, extremely conservative and High Church Anglican, to the point where John Henry Newman can migrate from Canterbury to Rome with little difficulty, in the wider context of the Birmingham Triennial Festival, and the wider corpus of Eucharistic compositions that engendered. However, while Elgar's taking one fabulist approach with Gerontius, Vaughan Williams is quietly subverting it by smuggling the old folk corpus supposedly ousted with the West Gallery Band, well-lubricated from the pub overnight, by putting their tunes back into the Church, in The English Hymn Book, a response to Hymns Ancient and Modern. He was victorious, and never more than in the Chapels, where the Wesleyan Methodists disdained such authoritarianism: and this is precisely Maddy Prior's personal background in Kilburn. She now works year and year about, Steeleye Span and Carnival Band, and it's been my huge pleasure to work behind her in the latter configuration.
One major factor beyond this is the renaissance of the Village Carols events at this time of year, firstly in the area south of Sheffield, now also in Kent and Sussex, where folksong in and around Christmas includes some glorious ghost stories. This pre-Enlightenment heritage is anathema to the Devotio Moderna, for all that it was rooted in Windesheim and Ruusbroec's Groenendael before that.
It's also useful to note that those of us in the 1970s who were part of the Early Music movement were faced with inappropriate instruments, and so generated the idea of Historically Informed Performance. I'm the bridge, in passing, between Sir Geraint Evans and the teenage David Roblou, who went on to become the Baroque Voice Coach in Guildhall of preference, per Catherine Bott.
Thank you for those insights! Time to revisit Steeleye Span.... ;)
@@deedeequast9148 They're mostly classic Scottish and Border works, but you'll find the odd Playford in there too. This was followed by a commercially exploitative something produced by Mike Batt, which a hardcore pre-1800 type like me found graunchy. But then again, I made my living doing something truly serious.
As a consummate fan of the Christmas season and especially Christmas music I'm overjoyed to discover a new (or old) Christmas song for the first time! Thank you for doing a video on this delightful piece and for highlighting the intricacies that make it work. Merry Christmas Early Music Sources!
There's some amazing renaissance Christmas carols out there. Have you heard "There is no rose" and "Es ist ein ros entsprungen"? If you haven't you should check them out. The latter in particular, sung by a good choir, is enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck by its sheer beauty. Or I think so, anyway, that is somewhat in the ear of the beholder.
@@lizziesmusicmakingI was in a choir many years ago that sang
"There is no rose of such virtue,.
As is the rose that bare Jesu...."
I have never found a recording anywhere.
@@irmafoster3933 Sang that at my church at midnight mass on Christmas eve a couple of days ago. It's a lovely one, isn't it?
@@irmafoster3933 If you search youtube, you will find multiple recordings of that song, including one by the cambridge singers.
Thank you for the suggestion.
Felices Fiestas Maestro
Muchas gracias por este video como siempre ❤
Bravo! Very informative about my favorite carol.
How fascinating! It has bothered me for years. A great start to Christmas day. Thank you for this, and all your scholarship, insight and wonderful singing.
Outstanding, as always. A tiny bit of tangentially related information: Besides the Senfl version, whose text is based on Martial, there is also a version by Jacques Arcadelt that has a rather free treatment of the original tune. I found it in "Livre septième", an exceptional collection of four-part songs by Pierre Phalèse. It seems that it came to serve essentially as the profane psalter of the Huguenots. It was reprinted more than 30 times over a period of 100 years, before being forgotten. The Arcadelt setting is present at least in the (digitized) 1570 and 1594 editions.
In the 1570 edition, this setting is followed by "Ut flos in sæptis secretus nascitur hortis", which may be a second part or a response by an anonymous composer. I have no idea where the text is from.
Wow a nice find! thanks! He uses only the first half of the tune, and with a different rhythm.
@@EarlyMusicSources I just realized that this song appears to be present in (almost?) all extant editions of this book.
For anyone having trouble finding the book, which is absolutely worth checking out: Perhaps the best edition is the 1594 one by Pierre Phalèse the son at Bibliothèque Nationale de France. This is from after a thorough revision that improved the repertoire considerably and put everything into a very deliberate order, sorted by modes and topics. The earlier 1570 edition by Pierre Phalèse the father is at Universitätsbibliothek Rostock. Both are avilable online as digital facsimiles.
Google Books has the inferior 1644 edition by Sweelinck, which apparently served as a school book for Dutch speakers and has a lot of Dutch songs for a different number of voices. Comparing these versions, you can clearly see the explosion of printed accidentals. (Maybe it is motivated in part by people like Sweelinck playing keyboard instruments from the individual parts? Standardized, printed accidentals no doubt made it easier for voice and accompaniment to agree on the same solution to the musica ficta.)
If there is any interest, I can provide a download link to the draft of my modern (careful layman's) edition based on the 1594 version plus the 5 additional songs of the 1570 version.
Hello and thank you very much for the detailed information! Your channel is so helpful to me 😊
The melody in 14:51 is found in the swiss catholic song book (Katholisches Gesangbuch) no. 313 as a song for advent "Tauet, Himmel aus den Höhn".
According to the information below, the melody is by Jens Spangenberg, Erfurt 1544.
Wow amazing! Thank you very much
I added the information (including a comparison example) to the footnotes page: www.earlymusicsources.com/youtube/gaudete
Many thanks once again!
@@EarlyMusicSources You are welcome!
Thank you for your great work and interesting content! 👍
Merci beaucoup pour l’histoire. Joyeux Noël
Excellent, thank you, and all the best for the coming year.
Excellent content! thank you so much for this.
Amazing Video and deepdive! Thank you very much and have Merry Christmas!
Thank you.
I just find it basically inpossible to hear the tenor as the melody unless it is played or sung significantly louder than the other parts. Given the voices used back then, I suspect this is how they were sung, as the higher parts would all be in falsetto or by younger singers, and thus quieter.
Well, except when it was sung an octave higher with all other parts as an accompaniment. Then dynamics didn't matter.
I understand what you mean. We hear it from a modern point of view in which the bass defines the harmony and the top voice carries the tune. Since more or less the beginning of the Baroque era, harmony has been read from the bottom up and since the highest voice is the one that stands out, the principal melody will usually be found there. It's a very audience-friendly way of doing things. But concepts in the Middle Ages were very different. The principle melody would be the obligatory line held by the tenor (from 'tenere' to hold) and voices above and below were added to that. Since music was not conceived specifically as something to be heard by an audience the concept of a most prominent voice wasn't really an issue. The music would often be heard only by the performers and each singer would hear their own voice as the most prominent one. In 1582, when this song was printed, the style and concepts were already quite similar to the ones we have today but the tenor voice would still usually have the original melody.
@@nigelhaywood9753 I don't doubt you. But I note the higher voices also tended to use lighter singers and often encouraged the lighter falsetto mechanism. So it wouldn't surprise me if those upper parts were weaker, like in modern barbershop music.
@@ZipplyZane Yes, that's very probably true.
Thank you thank you!! This was fascinating--I've been thrilled with the early music world since the 1960s, via my musicologist father and his early music performing courses at university, as well as seeing live performances of Thomas Binkley's group, Studio der Fruhe Musik, and Noah Greenberg's New York Pro Musica. Will look for your other work here on RUclips!
Perfect as usual. A very happy new year to you Elam
The first time I heard this song was Steeleye Span. I like it just fine.
Thank you so much Elam.
My first hearing of it was Steeleye Span as a teenager. Then in my 30's I joined a choir and requested we do it ( we did and I loved it). Seeing this makes me want to sing in a choir again to revisit it
I love this channel ❤🎉❤🎉❤
Thanks for this perfect Christmas present. It doesn't feel like Christmas to me if I haven't sung this at least once.
Yeah, me too, imprinted on Steeleye Span. Glad to know their treatment of the piece is respectabel.
Thanks Elam.
Thanks for the history of this Christmas anthem. In the Vermont (USA) churches where I am choirmaster (and sometime pastor) we often use the "Gaudete" as a choral response after the reading of the Nativity stories -- as you imply may have been its original use.
Wonderful. Gives me goosebumps.
That was so interesting. Thank you.
What a wonderful video -thanks a lot for the superb recordings! All the best!
I wrote a few comments after
reading such expert analysis
of minute details that are way
above my head only to say that
It is mostly the English Ts and
Ds that stand out. I sang with
friends in the US who did not
hear "Venichay adowemus" as
odd. Conversely, teaching the
English sounds to Romance
language speakers is quite a
feat. One,two,three may turn
into Juan chew tree, and in
1970 in Cambridge a Spanish
girl told me she mastered the
consonants but had trouble
with her bowels.
Brilliant video, thank you!
I'm amazed at the quality of the content. Centuries of confusion untangled clearly from primary sources, amazing!
What a wonderful Christmas Day video, at least it was when I watched it. Fascinating that what we think of as the tune is the accompaniment to the cantus firmus, so many traditional Christmas carols probably originated in the same way.
Thank you, Elam!
Thank you!
Thank you! This was fascinating. 😊
I've loved this tune since hearing the Steeleye Span forty odd years ago and began practicing a version on my gurdy just before Xmas this year.
Fabulous explanation, and what a fascinating story! Todah rabah!
Especially beautiful work.
And singing!
what a great melody
Thank you for the explanations - I love this song, as sung today, didn't know about its origins. Very interesting! I'd like to sing it in every kind as it was in the years passing by
Very interesting, 'Gaudete' has become one of my christmas favourites. Thank you for shining some light on its history.
This channel truly never misses
Gaudete with Good King Wenceslas verses? I’m glad that didn’t catch on!
Thanks SO much for your thorough research and presentation of this wonderful story!
This is the first time I've gotten to know this piece in a serious manner. This reminded me of a great comedic edit of a King's Singers recording on RUclips with the video title _Gaudete Shreds_ that I can very much recommend to watch.
⭐️Merry Christmas to all of you!
(If you do celebrate it, if not: happy holidays!)
Excellent video! Thanks so much.
Another amazing video. Thank you so much, and merry Christmas 😊
I'm looking for some renaissance or medieval Easter themed songs for solo voice to perform in an easter concert (bass voice). All suggestions will be very helpful.
In the choral life of modern Stockholm, it is very common to sing the Ward swingle arrangement, which is still titled Audete, Gaudete due to the fact that they misread the original text and missed the illuminated capital G letter. Bizarre. The arrangement contains the Steeleye Span verses, which we thought were original music from the 16th century.
I was surprised to learn about Rostock, I always thought that Piae Cantiones originated from Turku (Åbo) in Finland, which was Swedish at the time and still speaks Swedish (the Nyland region).
wonderful! Thank you.
Thanks. That was a great overview, a historical perspective. It strikes me that most variants have an interpretive similarity which binds them all into a recognisable “sound”, that of this beloved song.
Thank you again for an illuminating discussion.
Wonderful insights. Thank you!
Brilliant, thank you so much
thank you for all your knowledge!
Thanks for this interesting video (and the good pronounciation of german words)! I personally like the King's Singers arrangement best. Greetings from Leipzig :)
You are amazing. I wanted a video like this for so many years, thank you so much! As much as I love the rephrain, I always felt there was something amiss about the verse melody of Gaudete commonly used. I much prefer the last version you show, with it taken directly from the other song with identical lyrics.
Fascinating - thank you!
Under The Salt is my favorite Steeleye Span album. I play Guadette on my oboe every Christmas.
Splendidly well done! Thank you!
Beautiful! Thank you for another wonderful video. Gaudete indeed, cheers!
For the verses, we use the melody of Ezechielis porta (fol. 268) from Franus codex (1505).
Thank you very much for your fascinating documentary 🙏🏾 I made an arrangement for an orchestra in Russia many years ago, and I would surely have benefited from knowing what your research has uncovered ❤
Thank you for your very interesting and informative dissertation. While all of the various arrangements are recognisable and enjoyable, the Steeleye Span version still sounds best to my ears. I also often hear criticism of Steeleye Span by Classic Latin pedants for not using the "correct" pronunciation of the words. However, this carol was written in late Mediaeval Latin and the pronunciation is correct for that period.
Except the English D and T
sounds and Virginae sung like
in like a Virgin. Great vocals,
though. I opened for Tim and
Maddy at the 1970 Ipswich Folk Festival and was so impressed I bought their First
LPs and Steeleye later. Maddy
talked to me!...well She held a pint of ale and asked gently
"Where's the loo?"
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Medieval Babes rendition.
I just saw this video and was about to say that. I have listened to them since their first CD in the 90s and that’s the only place I had ever heard this piece before.
Very, very nice and in depth historic analysis of this little but important song. I would have loved to hear you sing the complete Gaudete, with the 15th Czech verses and the ficta. The latter seem to have been sort of lost cause of personal choices of older influencial editors, like our mr Woodward.
I've honestly gone off Steeleye Span's version of Gaudete mostly because of their butchered Latin pronunciation, but I didn't realise just how heavy their influence is on how it's sung today. The various different tunes for the verses is an eye opener and I now have quite a few curveballs to throw at my choir the next time we do it!
To my ears it sounded like Latin with a Scottish accent. But it could be some other regional UK accent that I, from the USA, don't recognize.
It's just Latin with a kind of generic folky-English accent that was prevalent amongst English folksingers of the time. There's no tradition that I know of, in which latin texts are sung with a studied, academically authentic accent. Latin texts are usually sung with ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation which is probably no more accurate than Steeleye Span's version.
@@nigelhaywood9753Maybe
not more authentic but at least
without the English Ts and D's
and the Like a Virgin sound on Virginae. Well, Americans say
Noter Daime, pronounced like
Bogey in " blame the dame"
Merry Christmas!
@14:50 isn't that tune from Orff's 'Carmina Burana'? Ot perhaps from whatever inspired Orff. I'm clearly no musicologist, but it might be an idea worth considering.
The ficta from the 17th century source is interesting. In the past couple of years our choir director has suggested singing Palestrina with just the normal rules of Musica Ficta applied, rather than rules specific to Palestrina, on the assumption that Palestrina’s music accrued altered notes during its unbroken performance tradition. We sang the Missa Papae Marcelli, and there was only one chromatic alteration suggested in the score that I really missed. The other non-standard alterations just made the music sound closer to Anerio or Phillips…
So nice, thx 😊
Very true about it seeming old fashioned. You got to get with the times in 1582!