Talk:Laudate Dominum (Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck)

14635

Bar 11: Tenor - E flat on "eum", not E natural.
Bar 14: Soprano II - E flats on "o-" and "po-", not E natural, according to the 1957 Alsbach edition, (though the Rutter version in European Sacred Music has E natural throughout).
Bar 14: Alto - E flat on "populi", not E natural.
Bar 15: Bass - "li" at beginning of bar should instead be a crotchet rest.
Bar 22: Tenor - crotchet rest should be a quaver rest, followed by a quaver D. First four syllables of "misericordia" should be shifted left one note.
Bar 33: Tenor - "Domii" for "Domini".
Jamesgibb 10:36, 2 August 2012 (CDT)

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James:
Bar 14: Tenor has no Es, flat or natural. Did you mean Sop2 and Alto rather than A & T? Anyway, the E naturals seem fine to me.
The other 'suggested errors'? - Agreed.
Marghek 04:07, 3 August 2012 (CDT)

Sorry about that. The suggested errors are in S2 and A, not A & T and I've made the corrections above. I'm going from a comparison with the Alsbach 1957 edition of Cantiones sacrae - a tone higher, but no F sharps in bar 14, other than at the end for S2.
Jamesgibb 04:57, 3 August 2012 (CDT)

Sorry to keep on about this, but OUP publish an edition (by John Rutter in European Sacred Music) where the E naturals (as transposed) in bar 14 are given. E naturals also sound better to me. Of course I accept that editions vary, but, IMHO, choir directors should be aware that opinions differ.
Marghek (talk) 04:34, 5 August 2012 (CDT)

No problem about your "keeping on about it" - that's part of the value of CPDL - but we clearly have differing views on Rutter! However, de gustibus...
In the case of the European Sacred Music version, all the accidentals in bar 14 of S2 are indicated as editorial. I'll add a note to bar 14 to acknowledge that the Rutter edition differs.
Jamesgibb (talk) 05:58, 5 August 2012 (CDT)

Thanks for your patience. I haven't given my view on Rutter as a composer - and I won't on this polite Wiki ;) However, as an editor and supported by the might of the OUP Music Department, I think his work needs consideration. Your note to bar 14 is the scholar's solution, of course - thanks again.

I have had a couple of other instances where ESM has differed from CPDL versions - one was in Palestrina's Sicut cervus where I remembered the tenor part differently from the CPDL version (after copying it and rehearsing it with 'my' choir several times).

--Marghek (talk) 04:03, 6 August 2012 (CDT)

Reply by: Chucktalk Giffen♫ 12:18, 6 August 2012 (CDT)  Help  As is often the case with early music editing, this case illustrates a situation where an editor choses to raise all the E-flats in m14 to E-naturals (F-naturals to F-sharps before transposition) and not to indicate whether this is an editorial decision at variance with original sources. In the EMS edition, Rutter seems to have rightly indicated that these choices are editorial. Personally, I wish all editors would indicate such editorial decisions in a clear manner – which might best be indicated by putting the editorially altered accidental above the note in traditional musica ficta style. As to the reason(s) behind making such changes (whether editorially acknowledged or not), that is a different story. In the present case and to some ears, indeed to perhaps most modern ears, raising the E-flats (F-naturals) to E-naturals (F-sharps) because "they sound better" may belie our understanding of not only the composer's intentions but also the harmonic idiom of the era in which the piece was composed, a time when harmony was frequently more modal than we perceive it today. Thus, not choosing to raise the notes in question by a semitone (except for the leading tone notes at the end of m14 in the S2 part) is possibly more in keeping with Sweelinck's intent and the modal perception of the time. In other words, if the raised notes were presented as musica ficta I might well elect not to opt for the editorial suggestions (which is really how musica ficta should be regarded, at least on first read). It seems possible that Sweelinck might not have intended m14 to be a "major mode" cadence in anticipation of the real cadence (and beginning of the next textual and musical section) at m15; moreover, to make the entire m14 a "dominant major" leading to the tonic at m15 does not fit the mode of this piece nor of the Netherlands school of that era. Of course, this may also reflect my own tendency in recent years to be less liberal with the application of musica ficta and a willingness to try to understand what the composer might have intended and the harmonic idiom in which the work was composed. That there is a variety of opinions on this is what makes it so interesting. Link to a performance where the notes in question are not raised by a semitone.

The editor of the original 1619 print also suggests not to raise the notes at the beginning of m14. (beginning of line 4). In the end of this mensur it is however not musica ficta but clearly f#: [1] Gerd Eichler 12:22, 26 September 2012 (CEST)