Ut queant laxis Gregorian notation Benedictine tradition

"" or "" is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn ...

in honor of

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

, written in

Horatian Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

Sapphics The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of four lines. Originally composed in quantitative verse and unrhymed, since the Middle Ages imitations of the form typically feature rhyme and accentual prosody. It is "the longest ...

with text traditionally attributed to

Paulus Diaconus Paul the Deacon ( 720s 13 April in 796, 797, 798, or 799 AD), also known as ''Paulus Diaconus'', ''Warnefridus'', ''Barnefridus'', or ''Winfridus'', and sometimes suffixed ''Cassinensis'' (''i.e.'' "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk, s ...

, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of

musical notation Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation f ...

, in particular solmization. The hymn belongs to the tradition of

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe dur ...

. It is not known who wrote the melody.

Guido of Arezzo Guido of Arezzo ( it, Guido d'Arezzo; – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a m ...

possibly composed it,Ut queant laxis
in ''Encyclopédie Larousse'' but he more likely used an existing melody. A variant of the melody appears in an eleventh-century musical setting of Horace's poem ''Ode to Phyllis'' ( 4.11) recorded in a manuscript in France.

Structure

The hymn uses classical

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pre ...

s: the Sapphic stanza consisting of three Sapphic

hendecasyllable In poetry, a hendecasyllable (sometimes hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poetry, and ...

s followed by an adonius (a type of

dimeter In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. The particular foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In m ...

). The chant is useful for teaching singing because of the way it uses successive notes of the scale: the first six musical phrases of each

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

begin on a successively higher notes of the

hexachord In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six- note series, as exhibited in a scale ( hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial ...

, giving ''ut–re–mi–fa–so–la''; though ''ut'' is replaced by ''do'' in modern

solfège In music, solfège (, ) or solfeggio (; ), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the tw ...

. The naming of the notes of the

by the first syllable of each

hemistich A hemistich (; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , from "half" and "verse") is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit. In Latin verse, Latin and Greek poetry, the hemist ...

(half line of verse) of the first verse is usually attributed to

. Guido, who was active in the eleventh century, is regarded as the father of modern musical notation. He made use of clefs (C & F clefs) and invented the ''ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la'' notation. The hymn does not help with the seventh tone as the last line, ''Sancte Iohannes'', breaks the ascending pattern. The syllable ''si'', for the seventh tone, was added in the 18th century. The first stanza is: Ut queant laxīs resonāre fibrīs Mīra gestōrum famulī tuōrum, Solve pollūtī labiī reātum, Sāncte Iohannēs. It may be translated: ''So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John.'' A paraphrase by Cecile Gertken, OSB (1902–2001) preserves the key syllables and loosely evokes the original meter: Do let our voices resonate most purely, miracles telling, far greater than many; so let our tongues be lavish in your praises, Saint John the Baptist.Gertken, Cecile: ''Feasts and Saints'', 1981 ''Ut'' is now mostly replaced by ''Do'' in

due to the latter's

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999 * Open (C ...

sound, in deference to Italian theorist Giovanni Battista Doni. The word "Ut" is still in use to name the C-

clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pitc ...

. The seventh note was not part of the medieval hexachord and does not occur in this melody, and it was originally called "si" from "Sancte Ioannes" (

Johannes Johannes is a Medieval Latin form of the personal name that usually appears as " John" in English language contexts. It is a variant of the Greek and Classical Latin variants (Ιωάννης, '' Ioannes''), itself derived from the Hebrew name '' ...

). In the nineteenth century,

Sarah Glover Sarah Anna Glover (13 November 1786 – 20 October 1867) was an English music educator who invented the Norwich sol-fa system. Her Sol-fa system was based on the ancient gamut; but she omitted the constant recital of the alphabetical names of ...

, an English music teacher, renamed "si" to "ti" so that every syllable might be notated by its initial letter. But this was not adopted in countries using fixed-do systems: in Romance languages "si" is used alike for B and B flat, and no separate syllable is required for sharp "sol".

Liturgical use

In the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite ( la, Ritus Romanus) is the primary liturgical rite of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while di ...

, the hymn is sung in the Divine Office on June 24, the Feast of the Nativity of

. The full hymn is divided into three parts, with "Ut queant laxis" sung at

Vespers Vespers is a service of evening prayer, one of the canonical hours in Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic (both Latin and Eastern), Lutheran, and Anglican liturgies. The word for this fixed prayer time comes from the Latin , mea ...

, "Antra deserti" sung at

Matins Matins (also Mattins) is a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning. The earliest use of the term was in reference to the canonical hour, also called the vigil, which was originally celebrated ...

, "O nimis felix" sung at

Lauds Lauds is a canonical hour of the Divine office. In the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours it is one of the major hours, usually held after Matins, in the early morning hours. Name The name is derived from the three last psalms of the psalter (148 ...

, and doxologies added after the first two parts.

References

External links

Full text, translation and some polyphonic settings
at

Choral Public Domain Library The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is a sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing (such as via permission from the copyright holder). It is a ...

a short account
at Catholicculture.org

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ut Queant Laxis 11th century in music Latin-language Christian hymns Musical notation

Structure

Liturgical use

See also

References

External links