Talk:Unam petii a Domino (William Byrd)

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4566

Bar 15: Bass - ''qu- for qui-.
Bar 54-65: All parts - voluntatem for voluptatem.
Jamesgibb (talk) 18:23, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi James
Actually Byrd's Gradualia does read "voluntatem" (there's a facsimile on IMSLP), as do some psalters I have seen from this period, including that of Sarum Use which Byrd would have known in his youth. So Byrd's reading would have been deliberate and not an error. I don't know when the Vulgate changed to 'voluptatem'. Maybe later in the 17th cent?
Jason Smart (talk) 01:21, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
The 1590 vulgate has "voluntatem", but the 1598 vulgate reads "voluptatem"; certainly the former word does not make any sense in the context. Just because the word is in Byrd's hand doesn't mean it's immutably correct, given the sense of the verse and later typographical corrections to the Clementine Vulgate; most composers of the period were pretty blasé with their text underlay anyway.
Dpxpubs (talk) 05:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

So far as I can see by random sampling, 'voluntatem' was the standard medieval reading. 'Voluntatem' versus 'voluptatem' was being debated by at least the second quarter of the sixteenth century and Coverdale evidently chose the latter for his 1535 translation of the bible. It is true that 'voluptatem' eventually ousted the earlier reading, but 'voluntatem' was still in use late in the sixteenth century. 'Voluptatem' does make the *better* sense, but it is stretching the point to claim that 'the will of the Lord' makes no sense: it made sense enough in its day and, bearing in mind that Byrd's motets are often political, it is perfectly conceivable that he preferred that reading. In any case, Byrd was anything but blasé about his underlay. Just look at Milsom's edition of the 1575 Cantiones Sacrae and his details of all the stop-press corrections made during the production process. That all of Byrd's 1605 partbooks read 'voluntatem' (and this was not altered in the second edition of 1610) simply cannot be accidental, or regarded as incorrect, and I don't think there's a valid case for wilfully altering what has every appearance of being the correct reading. It is not as if we are dealing with a manuscript transmission which might well have introduced accidental or deliberate changes. Incidentally, Kerman pointed out that Gradualia I probably included some pieces composed much earlier than 1605. Unam petii is not a missal text and could well be one of these.

Jason Smart (talk) 08:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)