Right here:
Te Deum
(I should clarify that this is not my favorite setting of this Te Deum, but Starke's text at LSB 941 has become one of my all time favorite texts. I'd love to link to the Kantorei's setting of this, but don't know if it is on the web - I think it's better - less "brassy" and more attuned to what the words are actually confessing.)
Ooo, thanks man...
ReplyDeleteThat was so sweet sounding! Is it Welsh? It sounds very Welsh. The song structure reminds me of what inspired contemporary, Midwestern composers, too.
ReplyDeleteA very Americana sound, almost.
LOL. No, the tune is by Gustov Holst, from *The Planets* of all things! But it works very well for this hymn text.
ReplyDeleteWeird! That Planets thing was a modern type piece, if I remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteHuh!
Goodness, Lucciola, I haven't the foggiest! I'm illiterate about such things. And that's why I don't care that it was used in a secular piece - the MUSIC fits Starke's text to a T! It's perfect.
ReplyDeleteMost I know about Holz, is that - I think - Tom Lehrer included him in his song about Eva von Braun. :)
As a thorough anglophone with little Greek and no Latin, what is a Te Deum? A short requiem prayer like a Memorial or Pannikhida in Orthodoxy? What, by comparison is the "Dona nobis"?
ReplyDeleteReading Louth's history of the Church from an Eastern perspective has shown me how little I really know of the Church of the 'medieval' West, i.e., Carolingians, Cluny, the Hildebrandine Reform, etc. It was all just works-righteousness and superstition to me growing up, except for Arthur, castles and swords; of course, more recently, it has been filioquist innovation and papal arrogance. Either way, that's way I don't know what a Te deum is.
FYI... Holst wrote The Planets suite during the early 20th century. Pastor Weedon, if you want to hear the whole suite let me know... I'm sure I can hook you up. Mars is by far my favorite. The imagery is so vivid... probably not suitable for a hymn to be attached to it... but vivid none the less.
ReplyDeleteChristopher! You never sang the Te Deum at Matins from TLH??? The Te Deum is the great canticle that Lutherans (and Anglicans and RC) use for the early morning office - especially on Sundays. It was thought in medieval times to have been composed by Ambrose and Augustine upon the latter's baptism - though this is no longer held to be a likely story. In Lutheran service books it is sometimes called the Hymn of Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. Luther wrote a rimed paraphrase of it, but here is the prose text:
ReplyDeleteWe praise thee, O God
we acknowledge thee to be the Lord
All the earth doth worship thee
the Father everlasting.
To thee all the angels cry aloud
the heavens and all the powers therein.
To thee cherubim and seraphim do continually cry
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth
are full of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee.
The noble army of martyrs praise thee.
The Holy Church
throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;
the father of an infinite majesty;
thine honourable true and only Son;
also the Holy Ghost the comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,
thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all beleivers.
Thou sittest at the hand of God
in glory to be our judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants.
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting
O Lord save thy people
and bless thine heritage
Govern them and lift them up for ever
Day by day we magnify thee;
and worship thy name, ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.
O Lord in thee have I trusted let me not be confounded.
Pr. Stephen Starke provides a beautiful paraphrase of that ancient text in the recording I linked to above.
The best musical versions of the Te Deum are as follows:
ReplyDelete1) William Byrd's from his "Great Service"
2) Anton Bruckner's
3) Marc-Antoine Charpentier's
4) Louis Hector Berlioz'
Have you heard Arvo Pärt's Te Deum? It's wonderful too - if you like that modern sound.
ReplyDeleteTry this out for the Kantorei:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ctsfw.edu/chapel/index.php
(on the side menu in two formats)
I was hoping I knew the Te Deum, but not the Latin title. Such is not the case. This is not familiar to me at all, so I guess, no, I never sang the Te Deum at Matins from TLH. I don't think I had ever even heard of Matins before reading "The Name of the Rose". I was fascinated by all the 'other' stuff in our old common hymnal - e.g., Athanasian Creed, the latin title for the Psalms, the chant in the back, the rubrics, etc. - but I only remember using the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday and singing the first setting or two of chants in the back a couple times. Around my middle school years the pastors starting writing their own services, and the other churches that retained the old hymnal (ELS in MA, in LA and my grandparents' church in the UP) never got into the 'Anglican'/'Catholic' stuff - we really just used it for the basic Sunday and/or Communions services and the hymns.
ReplyDeleteCTS Kantorei Te Deum in Windows Media format
ReplyDeleteWow!!! Thanks. That's my favorite setting - right there! Great!
ReplyDeleteThe Te Deum was written in the early 4th century. The most common person to whom authorship is attributed today is Niceta of of Remesiana. It was traditionally sung at the end of Matins on Sundays and feast days, and unlike other hymns, only one melody is given it in the Liber usualis. Over time, particularly in the Renaissance, it also came to be known as a celebratory piece, performed at coronations, to celebrate the victory of a battle, etc. Luther adapted this, as well as other chants - the chorale name is "Herr Gott, dich loben wir". In Luther orthodoxy, it came to be associated particularly with the New Year and the feast of St. Michael. The Anglican Book of Common prayer also gave a prominent place to the Te Deum, and the Anglican church has a long tradition of festival settings, including some by Purcell and Handel. The Baroque era saw many interesting compositions and festival settings. In the French court of Louis XIV, the Te Deum came to be associated with royalty, and performances were ordered by the king. There is even a parody text of the Te Deum praising the king. French Baroque settings have their own anachronisms of composition, particularly using the "Sanctus" motive as a musical anagram for the king's titles. Lutheran composers treated it like any other chorale. Moving on to the 19th century, many huge, large scale settings can be found - notably those of Berlioz and Dvorak.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing is the introduction of the hymn to Orthodoxy - I don't know if it ever became common, but I know there is a setting of it (in Russian) by the Orthodox composer Bortniansky, which I recently heard performed by the Russian Patriarchate Choir.
Sorry, got carried away a little - this is my thesis topic, after all.
Maria! Your thesis is on Te Deum??? How sweet is that!!! Say, can you tell me for certain something I've wondered about. In modern liturgical settings the final preces are often marked off as "a later addition." Have you seen manuscript evidence of a Te Deum that DIDN'T end with the "vouchsafe O Lord..." prayers at the end?
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way, the Lutheran Service Books of 16th and 17th century basically retained the Latin text AND music for the Te Deum. You can find it that way in Lossius and in Magdeburg Service Book.
ReplyDeletei wonder if the Te Deum and the Eastern Rite's Great Doxology are related. Reading through the text of the Te Deum reminds me in many places of the Great Doxology, and they are both used toward/at the end of the Matins service - though I know the Eastern and Western versions of this service are different, in some way, so perhaps there is no relationship between the two.
ReplyDeleteEvery setting I've seen so far includes the "vouchsafe o Lord" prayers at the end - but my focus is mainly in the 17-19 centuries, with dipping a little into the 16th. However, here is what the New Grove dictionary of music has to say about the text. It seems to agree that the last bit is a later addition.
ReplyDelete"(verses 22 and 23 are borrowed from Psalm xxviii.9 and form the conclusion of what is now regarded as the principal part of the text, about which the manuscript sources are in substantial agreement). The final section, from verse 24 to the end, consists almost entirely of psalm verses that adapt what has preceded them to daily recitation: ‘Per singulos dies benedicimus te’, etc. (Psalm cxliv.2.).
Kähler’s exhaustive analysis of the text reveals important similarities between the Te Deum's principal part (vv.1–23) and the formulae of the Gallican and Mozarabic liturgies. He concluded that the hymn originated before the middle of the 4th century as the Preface, the Sanctus and the prayer following the Sanctus of an old Latin Mass of the Easter vigil, a Mass of baptism. Lending further support to Kähler’s argument are the references to the Te Deum at Gallican festal Matins mentioned in the two earliest descriptions of the Gallican Office, those by the 6th-century bishops of Arles St Caesarius (534–42) and St Aurelian (547–51). The Te Deum’s position at the beginning of the early vigil service in the Ambrosian rite came at a later, though probably still archaic, stage in the canticle's early history."
The early Lutheran use of it is an interesting topic in itself (I have several articles in my sources discussing the Lutheran use of Latin hymnody, which was particularly prevalent in Leipzig, well into Bach's time). When used in Latin, the plainchant was untouched. When used in German, it was slightly altered to fit the German text better, and later also made rhythmic for easier singing (by their standards, of course). It wasn't uncommon in the services to find the same hymn sung in both Latin and German, in alternatim. The high Baroque organ settings are quite fun - ever heard Buxtehude's setting? It's quite fun to play.
I'm a huge fan of The Planets by Holst. We attempted Mars in the spring concert band in college but it was a little over our heads. My wife played Jupiter in Wind Ensemble a couple years later. It was really good.
ReplyDeleteI have two copies of The Planets. One done by the Chicago Symphony and the other by the London Philharmonic. Both are awesome. Jupiter and Mars are the best to me, but if you get a chance to hear an orchestra perform the whole suite, DO NOT PASS UP the opportunity. My wife and I went to Wichita Falls from OKC just to hear it a few years back. I'll admit that I'm easily moved by music of all kinds but this performance was just outstanding. I was thoroughly moved.
As for the melody of the Te Deum being the same as Jupiter...well, that melody works for sure. I never really thought of it as a liturgical melody having heard The Planets suite first. I think my LCMS church has been away from those centuries-old "oldies" for a while now. I still would like to know what the connection is between Holst and the TD melody. Anyone know? A google search only gave dozens of sites selling classical music.
Grasshopper,
ReplyDeleteI think the only connection is that Pr. Starke found the music a perfect fit for the text. The tune is credited to Holst in the LSB.
Ah, I see. Thanks Pr. Weedon.
ReplyDeleteHymn 941 in LSB...found it.
I was on a big Herbert Howells kick last quarter. His Te Deum is wonderful, plus it's in English of course. :) AND, they sing the actual text (honourable true and only son/ thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb).
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, how do we deal with that? In our English speaking Lutheran use we've always known "didst humble thyself to be born of a virgin". While that, by my reading, is not a false statement, it is not what the text is, and is something different than "not abhorring the virgin's womb". It seems to be just because of this alternative translation (the source is the APB I believe, see the notes on the Te Deum in the Anglican Breviary) that Starke wrote "you laid aside your glory, were born of virgin's womb". Whereas "didst humble thyself" seems good, this "laid aside your glory" seems to be dangerous language at least. considering the creedal nature of the Te Deum (Magdeburg calls it the Symbol of Ambrose/Augustine), I'm nervous about the decision to change the words.
Sean,
ReplyDeleteBlame the Episcopalians in America! THEY altered the Te Deum to avoid "womb" and the result was the form that came to be used in American Lutheran liturgy where they just hijacked the American BCP's lingo.
Laid aside your glory in Starke should be understood to mean the USE of divine glory. Thus, the Son can pray in John 17: "Glorify me with the glory I had with Thee before the world was." It's not that it was absent from Him - think of the Transfiguration - but that He chose not to use it. And I really think that's all that Starke means. Still, I wish he had used another phrase.
In Luther's paraphrase of the Te Deum we get: Thou didst not spurn the virgin's womb to save mankind from sin and doom. (AE 53:174)
i've talked to several people about the new hymnal's te deum tune. and most agree with me that a lot of the tune sure sounds like the song (hallelujah) from the move shrek.
ReplyDeletei wish we could put another melody on this one, as this is very distracting.
i've talked to several people about the new hymnal's te deum tune. and most agree with me that a lot of the tune sure sounds like the song (hallelujah) from the move shrek.
ReplyDeletei wish we could put another melody on this one, as this is very distracting.