O Virgo Splendens Llibre Vermell de Montserrat

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Llibre Vermell (The Vermillion or Red Book) (c. late 14th century): Canon for Three Voices, O Virgo Splendens • Transcription by: Jordan Alexander Key • Website: http://www.jordanalexanderkey.com/ • Full critical transcription and performance score: • https://www.academia.edu/30059997/Lli... • The Abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat (“St. Mary of the Serrated Mountain”) is a Benedictine monastery near Barcelona, Spain. Starting in the 11th century and continuing through the late Middle Ages, Montserrat was a significant pilgrimage site for devotion to the Virgin Mary. Interestingly, music played a central role in these pilgrimage activities, particularly beginning with the 12th century founding of one of the oldest boy choirs in Europe’s recorded history, La Escolania de Montserrat. • As a major center for learning and pilgrimage, Monserrat and its monks were faced with the monastically problematic large number of pilgrims visiting from all over secular Southern and Western Europe. Accounts tell us that one of the greatest problems was the pilgrim’s custom of singing and dancing in the church and around the sacred shrine. While the singing and dancing was clearly an expression of joy at finally completing the pilgrimage, the songs commonly known to these large numbers of diverse peoples tended to be, as one would expect, secular and were frequently considered inappropriate for a sacred place. • Rather than prohibit the pilgrim’s exuberant song and dance, the monks decided to support it. To contend with secularism, the monks redirected the pilgrim’s song to a collection of music with subjects more suitable for the monastery, but with musical content similar to that of the popular styles of the day. Consequently, most of the music in the Llibre Vermell is sacred but in the popular, secular style of the 14th Century. Furthermore, it is probable that these pieces were originally well known secular songs that became appropriated with sacred texts. • The Caça (“chace” or canon) known as “O Virgo Splendens” (“O splendorous virgin”) is the first in the small collection of music from the Llibre Vermell. It is perhaps the oddest of the set, being the most stylistically remote. It is the only piece not notated or composed in the contemporary style of the Ars Nova. Rather, its notation and style harken to previous centuries, possibly as recent as the discant style of the Parisian school of Notre Dame or of Santiago de Compostela from the 12th and 13th century, or as old as the free organum style of the 10th and 11th centuries such as that found in the Ad organum faciendum. Given its apparent lack of rhythmic mode of any kind, its relation to the 10th and 11th centuries seem more likely. • The piece, like many canons recorded in the 14th century, begins with a riddle that reveals the canonic nature of the notated music. As it stands in the manuscript, the piece is notated only as a monophonic (single voice) melody without any counterpoint or explicit accompaniment. However, in the margins of the page where the piece begins (folio 21v.) is inscribed the simple clue “Caça de duobus vel tribus” (“A hunt for two or three”). • The image of a hunt implies a chase of one thing after another, which stands as a metaphor for one voice chasing after the other, as is done in a canon wherein one voice begins and is followed by one or more entries of other voices with the same material. • The phraseological evenness and predictability along with the melodic and harmonic stasis in this piece all contribute to its sense of minimalism. However, this minimalism is certainly inline with what would have probably characterized “chaste and pious” music that would “take care” to not disturb “one who is devoted to prayer or contemplation, as is the intent specified in the Llibre Vermell itself. Thus, rather than characterizing a secular Caça or “hunt” of a man after the material world (such as that found in the contemporary canon “Se je chant” from the Ivrea Codex), perhaps this piece characterizes the sacred hunt or figurative pilgrimage for God within contemplation and prayer, towards which the pilgrims were meant to direct their devotions during their literal pilgrimage. • • Original Latin Text: • O virgo splendens hic • in monte celso • miraculis serrato, • fulgentibus ubique, • quem fidelis • conscendunt universi. • Eya, pietatis • occulo placato, • cerne ligatos • fune peccatorum, • ne infernorum • ictibus graventur, • sed cum beatis tua • prece vocentur. • • English Translation: • O virgin, shining brightly here • On this high mountain • That has been serrated • All over by radiant wonders • And that all of • The faithful climb. • O, with the gentle • Eye of love, • Behold those caught • in the bonds of sin • So that they will not • have to endure the blows of hell • But rather be called among the blessed • Through your intercession.

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