User talk:DaveF/Archive 4
Suscipe quaeso Domine - clefs; chant in Byrd's Pange Lingua
Dear David, In the edition of 'Suscipe quaeso' which you have transposed up a minor third, the contratenor and discantus parts have tenor-G clefs, but the parts need to be read with the ordinary (treble/alto) G clef. In the edition of Byrd's setting of Pange Lingua which includes chant, the antepenultimate note of the chant in each verse requires a flat, doesn't it? Most chant books present this chant with E as the final, so that the F is inevitably an F natural, sharps not being yet in use in this repertoire. I have found one instance of the chant with final on A, in a somewhat obscure Hymnale, where it is attributed to the manuscript Douce MS 381, apparently in the Bodleian Library. There is no key signature, but the antepenultimate note (B) has an accidental flat. Regards, Mick Swithinbank 09:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
- Mick,
- Sorry to have ignored your message for so long - I missed it as it was at the top of the page rather than the bottom. (Am I right in thinking that you used the "edit" tab rather than the "+" to add your new section? - the latter, I believe, puts a new section automatically at the bottom of the page.) Anyway, yes, my edition of Suscipe quaeso contains a number of errors and infelicities which I will get round to correcting in due course - but thanks for the reminder. Your constant attention to the detail of my editions is most reassuring, as I know my not infrequent errors will all get mopped up eventually.
- I must agree to differ with you over the question of the accidental in Pange lingua - the Sarum hymnal I used and cited in my edition prints the tune with A final and no sight of a flat on the B. I've sung a version of the chant myself with the flat, so I know what you mean, but the constant B naturals in the penultimate bars of Byrd's Tenor, which (sort of) carries the chant melody, convinced me not to emend the chant in my edition.
- --DaveF 19:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Spuria
Dear David, Firstly, many thanks for your contributions to the world of Byrd and Tallis editions.
Secondly, have you ever considered the inclusion of works, particularly by Byrd, of doubtful authenticity? There are some forgotten gems in this sphere of misattributions and anomalies, particularly the Ave Regina a5 (formerly attributed to Taverner). However, I'm unaware of your stance/opinion on such matters and wouldn't want to question your judgements concerning these works. Although having said that, it may be useful for the general public to have access to editions of these works in order to make more informed decisions about authorship issues.
Also, might you accept a humble correction? This one is trivial, don't worry! In your edition of Tallis' Sermone blando there is a missing letter in the text of the Discantus part at the last note of bar 12. The text reads "Do - m - ni" at the moment, not "Do - mi -ni". I find myself doing this a lot when typing on Sibelius!
Many thanks, Edward Tambling Edward Tambling 12:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Further corrections/questions
Dear David,
Sorry to hassle you more than is needed, but I noticed when singing through Sermone blando with some colleagues that a number of other errors were present in the edition.
The first is a just textual misprint - Bassus bar 22 reads "Christo" not "Christum", at odds with the other parts.
The second concerns the provision of ficta above the last notes of the Discantus and Bassus parts in bar 11 - Ebs for both parts? Likewise, the same happens in bar 24 (between Contra Tenor and Bassus). The Bb in the Tenor part creates an uncomfortable tritone!
The third concerns bars 31 and 49. The third beat of each bar is presumably a Bb mjor chord, although in the Discantus part at bar 31 (which becomes the Contra Tenor part in bar 49) contains a C on the "cor-" of "corda". Should this be a D? Likewise, the two crotchets in bar 49 on "sur-re-" of "surrexisti" in the Contra Tenor part echo this previous incident. I've had my colleagues change this in their copies (as well as the textual errors and suggested ficta) - was this the right thing to do?
Many thanks, Edward Tambling Edward Tambling 17:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
- Edward,
- Thank you for your comments. To answer in reverse order:
- Yes, of course those Cs should be Ds - thank you. Corrected edition to be posted shortly (I shall proofread it all again first - this doesn't look like one of my more careful editions).
- No, the E naturals are naturals, despite what happens in the following bar. I hope I'm right in saying it's a fairly straightforward VII-I progression (with a bit of Tallisian spice added in the form of the suspension in the Discantus).
- Bah, yes, Christum - it's editorial text, so I can't even claim I was following the source. Domni likewise - a perfectly good word (genitive sing. of Domnus), but not what Tallis or Vautrollier intended.
- And I would love to have access to MS sources of Byrd's works, spurious/doubtful or not, but don't really have much opportunity for getting hold of these. I'm more-or-less restricted to facsimiles of the printed sources.
- Thanks again for the corrections - they are very much appreciated. In the course of various revisions of my editions I have discovered some real howlers - these in works whose pages have been visited hundreds or thousands of times. It's painful to think of groups out there singing these horrors - perhaps (I hope) they just make the obvious corrections and don't tell me. So if you find anything else in any other of my editions, do let me know.
--DaveF 18:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Dear David,
- Thanks for these clarifications - this really helps. I'll keep the E naturals/flats question in the back of my mind for Sermone blando - I don't agree that they should be sung as naturals, at least not yet!
Many thanks, Edward Tambling 14:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Edward,
- I notice that the Chapelle du Roi on their complete edition (volume 4) sing E flats. There are two MS sources listed, to which I don't have access: British Library Add.30480–4 and Tenbury 341–4, the latter in the Bodleian. I'm sure one or both will have the E flats - I can't imagine Alistair Dixon would just make them up - but in the absence of actual evidence I'll have to stick with my reading from the print of the Cantiones.
- --DaveF 21:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Liturgical Calendar
This page has been marked for cleanup and potentially deletion. You were the only editor and you haven't edited the page for a few years so I was going to delete it but I thought I'd give you a heads up. Do you think we can do something useful with a list of saints' days and works suitable, etc? If not, it seems like the job has largely been done with Category:Sacred music by season --Bobnotts talk 10:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- No, zap it, by all means. I'd forgotten about it, but remember now abandoning it because it caused too many arguments (mainly with someone no longer active on this site, I hasten to add). I'm sure the category does the job just as well.--DaveF 20:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Byrd's O Salutaris Hostia (a6) - 21 V 1: Sharp?
Dear David,
Just a quick question about your edition of Byrd's superb "O salutaris hostia" (a6). I've noticed in the editions of both Warwick Edwards (for "The Byrd Edition" (Stainer and Bell, gen. ed. Philip Brett)) and David Skinner (for the Cardinall's Musick) that the inclusion of a G sharp on the second beat of bar 21 in the 5th part down (in this case, Bass I) is supported by no source evidence - neither Edwards nor Skinner includes this natural in their editions, and no mention is made by Edwards of textual variants between sources in this case.
This is a tricky one, not least since there is only one source for this voice part (London, British Library, Add. MS 31390 f. 17v) - the Baldwin partbooks (which sit in my college library [Christ Church, Oxford] only a few yards away!) lack this Tenor book [i.e. Bass I here], infuriatingly the only partbook missing.
How did you come by the sharp yourself? I'm all for its inclusion, not just because it creates perhaps the juiciest clash of the piece(!) but also because it completes the strictness of the canon that Byrd pursues so closely in the rest of the piece (in this case the Bass I part is the last part to imitate the Tenor II and Alto before it, both containing themselves the necessary natural). Moreover, the clash that this creates is no one-off dissonance!
I will be performing this piece with the Christ Church choir in just over a week's time, during the communion of a Eucharist (to be coupled with Byrd 4-part Mass) - the more heads turned the better!
Best wishes,
Edward Tambling 14:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Edward,
- I had completely forgotten the existence of that "edition" of mine. The answer to your question is that I copied it straight from Tudor Church Music, questionable accidentals and all, so can claim no editorial authority at all. I'm glad you alerted me, because of course the editions in TCM is still copyright - Fellowes died in 1951 and Sylvia Townsend Warner, another of the editors, in 1978, so I should never have posted it in the first place. It's gotta go, unfortunately.
- DF --DaveF 12:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Dear David,
Part of me wants to admire your sense of decency and respect to copyright material, but another laments the loss of another worthy piece from the CPDL catalogue! However, I believe you have done the right thing and I thank you for your honesty.
I had posed the same query (pretty much verbatim) to the other CPDL contributor (an American) concerning this piece, but the response given gave no acknowledgement of textural provenance (other than "I am aware of those three [sic] editions [the Skinner and Edwards]"). I'm no expert on copyright law across the pond, but this may be where he remains clean...
However, I'm glad that you pointed out TCM as the source for the accidental in question - it is one source I had forgotten about, and the realisation that the piece is in that collection this answers my question. I had got it into my head that "O salutaris" (a6) was somehow as spurious (and therefore previously unpublished in modern editions) as a piece like the setting of "Ave regina caelorum" (a5). However, its presence in TCM and its confirmed authenticity in the Baldwin partbooks prove me wrong.
Having just finished Finals I sort of regret not having taken the 'edition with commentary' option as part of the course (although the options I chose worked out in my 'favour'). I would have loved to have delved into the Christ Church Library and/or the Bodleian and dug out some obscure/spurious Byrd masterpiece for the examiners to praise and for the world to marvel at! Byrd scholarship is something that may well occupy me in the future - when I finally realise that being a Cathedral Organist has its limitations, I shall retreat back to the ivory tower and write a series of anti-Wulstan polemics concerning Tudor pitch (this is something I had a crack at in an essay for the choral conducting option that I took at Finals!) and make editions of the stuff that nobody has thought of releasing into the public domain. I can only hope to start where you yourself have left off - I recall (further up this page) that you said that you were unable to access source material other than that contained in prints. This is one thing that I shall miss in leaving Oxford - the legacy of the libraries! However, I shall apply for my alumnus reader's ticket as soon as I am able.
Indeed, Mr Skinner himself has been known in the past to release free editions. However, he is equally infamous for 'alluding to' the editions of others in creating his own (as tacitly acknowledged in the liner notes to several Byrd Edition CDs)...
Once again, many thanks for all you have done for the choral sphere with your editions of Byrd and Tallis - if only all editors the world over were able to be so generous!
Edward Tambling 23:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Haec Dies a 3; Quem terra, pontus, aethera
Our conductor may have already reported as much to you, but a choir I'm in performed the Haec Dies in our service last week. A (very poor quality) recording is on YouTube: [[1]] (it starts about 8:08.)
And this afternoon, two friends and I sang Quem terra for a master class with Anonymous 4. Special commendation was offered for having the translation and the liturgical use in the music, so -- thank you! So far as I know, no recordings were made, but the piece was so delightful I might try to cajole them into singing it again for some occasion ...
Pursuant to a previous poster: When I clicked + the site gave me a blank box and told me that 'User account "David Fraser" is not registered.' I know virtually nothing about wiki operations but wonder if there's a redirect issue?
Many thanks again :) Ruthan 01:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Location of this talk page
Hi Dave. To avoid the error message that appears every time someone edits this talk page (User account "David Fraser" is not registered. Please check if you want to create/edit this page."), I suggest moving just the talk page to your account login (ie. DaveF). Everyone else's talk pages are set up in this way. Cheers --Bobnotts talk 11:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)