<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the social context in which Lauda hymns were produced in the 13th century</h1>
Italy in the 13th century was just a geographical term, and political divisions led to frequent wars, rampant plagues, and corruption of religious clergy, which caused great suffering to the populace. Francis, an Assisian who had experienced war and illness, initiated the organization of the Dervish Order in 1205, and in 1209 Pope Innocent III approved the formal establishment of the "Franciscan Society".
Francis would advocate the beauty of nature spiritually and live in simplicity and poverty, and St. Francis asked his followers to travel around in their barefoot and preach and praise God. The earliest laudas date back to St. Francis' Canticle of the Sun in 1225, but the music has not survived. At the same time, other Dervishes (such as the Dominicans) and the worship of the Virgin Mary arose, especially as a response to heresies such as the Puritans. These two social backgrounds are the basis for the hymns of Lauda in the mid-13th century.
These hermits also established brotherhoods of the laity, at which rallies were dedicated to the singing of Lauda's hymns, called the Laudesi.) Others, in repentance, whipped themselves naked in a procession while singing hymns of praise, called "whippings" (Disciplinati, Battuti, or Flagellanti), but unfortunately their songs have not survived. The earliest Lauda Esoteric Congregation was founded in Siena in 1267, and soon after in the Torvish Convents of Tuscany and Umbria, many Lauda Clopatic Brotherhoods were founded, such as Bologna, Florence, Assisi, Perugia, Cortona and Orvieto. This institutional form of Lauda praise singing group was soon legalized with the connivance of the diocese and the Pope, and there were as many as 12 such groups in Florence alone.
The content of these Lauda hymns is usually about the lives of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, and is usually sung on the feasts of the saints, especially at vigils. The large number of gifts also makes it the responsibility of the Lauda Hymn Tos to provide professional and complex Lauda hymn activities, and technically also requires a quasi-liturgical song repertoire. In this context, the ornate florid lauda and the voluminous laudario were produced. The lyrics of the ornate Lauda hymn can correspond to many notes in one syllable, and the representative of this repertoire is Jacopone da Todi (c. 1230-1306), who also composed the dialogue form of Lauda hymns, which also contributed to the development of Italian vernacular drama. Only two of the medieval Lauda hymns have musical notations (and other fragments). One is the First Half of the 14th Century Florence Codex, now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence, number BR18, which includes 88 Lauda hymns with music, many of which are in ornate style. The other is the earliest 13th-century Laudario di Cortona (hereinafter referred to as the "Hymn Collection") introduced in this article.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > an overview of the Hymn Collection</h1>
The Collection of Hymns is now in the Library of the Municipal and Etruscan Academy (Biblioteca del Comunale e dell'Accademia Etrusca) in Cortona, In Arezzo, Italy, no. 91。 The Hymns were found in 1876 by librarian Girolamo Mancini in a pile of old books to be thrown away and were badly damaged. After being cleaned, bound and re-catalogued, it has been treasured in the library.
The Hymns belong to the Brotherhood of The Hymns of Santa Maria Lauda in the Church of Santa Francis in Cortona, and the exact date of its production is still uncertain, and Mancini, based on the lack of Lauda hymns in praise of Guido Vagnottelli (died in 1250), believes that it was about 1250, and there is also an opinion that it was between the 1270s and 1290s, on the grounds that it contained Jaabine Da Vinci. Toddy (converted in 1268) and Lauda in praise of St. Margaret (died 1297).
The Hymns consists of 122 sheets of parchment with no miniature paintings and stands in stark contrast to the exquisite ornate Florentine Codex. It consists of two parts, the first to 122 pieces of parchment constitute the earlier first part, measuring 226 × 172 mm, the second part of the 133rd to 171st parchment is older and smaller in size, 215×173 mm, and the 123rd to 132nd parchment is a small notebook inserted in between later.
The Hymn Collection includes 65 Lauda hymns, 46 of which are both lyrical and musical (in the first verse), in the same way that the chants of the time were notated, using the block notation method. These Lauda hymns are monophonic works with content related to the quasi-liturgical rites of special saintly festivals. The first 16 capitals were dedicated to the Virgin Mary (the 5th song consists only of lyrics), forming a compact group of works. The 17th is dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, while the 18th is dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Songs 19 through 32 also form a group of works corresponding to the different stages of a calendar year: Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity. Songs 33 and 35 are about love for Christ, and songs 34 and 36 are about contempt for the world. The next group is dedicated to all the saints: St. Francis (songs 37 and 38), Anthony of Padua (39), Mary Magdalene (40), the archangel Michael (41), the 42nd to all saints, the 43rd and 44th to John the Baptist, the 45th exhortation to love Christ, the 46th to the apostles, and the last 47th to the Virgin, echoing the beginning of the set.
The last verse of the lyrics of four Lauda hymns is marked "Garzo", and there is some evidence that he may have been the great-grandfather of the great poet Petrarch, although it is unclear whether this Garzo was the author of the melody, most likely only the author of the lyrics.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > poems in the Hymns</h1>
The quality and theme of the hymns varied greatly, and the authors were mostly anonymous. Many of the lyrics are intended to preach, such as some of the ancient Hymns of the Virgin Laura that contain anti-heretical content. Most of the hymns use lively, emotional language that can put the participating singers into a state of punishment or praise. Thematic material is generally adapted from the Bible, liturgical texts, and more popular prayer texts. Although the southern French troubadour canso and the Galician-Portuguese cantiga also express a deeper religious content, lauda is a new special religious and quasi-liturgical song written in the Italian dialect, more like the Italian secular dance song ballata in poetic structure, as well as the French virelai and The English carol. Some consider a form of Arabic poetry, Zagial, to be the source, but some Latin works of the middle of the Middle Ages already had a similar poetic structure.
Lauda's hymn consists of a two-line sentence plus a number of four-line verses. The most common rhyming formats are: xx, aaax, bbbx, etc., that is, the first three lines of the verse are the same, and the fourth line returns to the rhyme foot of the overlapping sentence, and each verse is rhymed. Usually, each line of lauda's hymn consists of eight syllables, and compared to those of court poetry, which is usually twelve syllables, it is not a work of profound, crepe and rhetorical technique, but a passionate, simple and natural prayer song that expresses the faith and closeness that the laity gained by praying to Christ, the Virgin, or the saints. In the first Lauite a laudare, the first Lauda hymn of the Hymns, the singer sings neither in despair nor himself, but extends the invitation to "sing for love" and praise the Virgin to all those who have good intentions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > music in the Hymns</h1>
Melodically, Gregory chants, southern French bard songs, and local folk songs all had a certain influence on Lauda's hymns. Gregory chants are undoubtedly models of Lauda hymns, which also use eight ecclesiastical modalities, most of which belong to the Dorian modalities. The melody of the overlapping sentence part is simple, one syllable corresponds to one note, the range is limited, usually non-professional mass chorus, while the tetragram is reserved for professional soloists, with a wider range, higher pitch, and rich floral singing and decorative tones. The change in the range helps to grab the attention of the listener, who sometimes participate in singing and sometimes listen to the singing, so the prayer's experience of beauty is complete and varied, full of participation. Soloists make singing a form of self-presentation and entertainment, and they communicate and pray better than others. In singing, the singers listen together, share miracles, and experience together the deep feelings and natural beauty that language cannot express. Some Lauda hymns have many verses and are sung for more than ten minutes, such as "Come and Praise" has 15 verses. The melodic style of Lauda's hymns is free and diverse, and the chorus of chanting patterns, dance tunes, local pop songs, prayers, hymns, and aria structures can be found in them.
It is this melodic flexibility and the flaws in the block notation that make lauda's rhythmic interpretation of the song controversial. The scholar Liuzzi's 1935 monumental translation of rhythm is unreliable, and care should be taken when using these facsimiles. Solving the problem of the rhythm of the monophonic Lauda hymn performance needs to be examined in the quasi-liturgical environment of italian cities in the late Middle Ages. In the continental tradition of the northern European countries (such as France), monophonic songs are in principle sectional, the rhythm is usually regular, relatively single, and expressing the lyric content with a suitable melodic structure is its main purpose. In contrast, in the Mediterranean tradition, monophonic songs assume that the meaning of the song itself lies in the actual sound, and that ornamental tones, clauses, and the presentation of sounds are all more important than lyrics. This vocal style is also not easy to translate, and in medieval Italy, works preferred to be transmitted orally, and the result was that the music documents were relatively simple and needed to be restored. The problem with the ornate Lauda hymn is the biggest problem, where each syllable of the lyrics corresponds to several notes, and the difference between performances interpreted using different rhythms is very significant.
In addition, there are some clef and melodic transcription errors in the Hymn Collection, which also make it difficult to choose the mode and interpret the melodic line. The brotherhood that owned the "Hymn Collection" was relatively wealthy, and the song collection was mainly made to show prestige, not to read the score, and the singers at that time should be familiar with these Lauda praises. Choosing between downstrokes or natural tones in a pseudophonic system is also an open question. In addition, several of the Hymns have ornamental notations, namely plica, which are difficult to identify due to transcription problems and improper preservation of the manuscript. Several explanations of this notation are given in medieval treatises, but the conventions of writing and executing are strongly dependent on the time and circumstances of musical creation. The repertoire of the Hymns does not contain a definitive paper to refer to.
Although there were only conclusive documents in the 14th century that stated that Lauda hymns could be accompanied by instruments, most of the performers used a variety of instruments to perform the songs of the 13th-century Lauda hymns, making simple melodies that were repeated many times less monotonous.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > a selection of recordings</h1>
There are three types of recordings of the entire song of the "Hymn Collection", the earlier I Prepolifonisti edition (Pan PRF 205-208, 1981[?)?). ], 4LP) only the LP version, the author has not yet had the opportunity to listen, and the other two versions can be said to have their own advantages. Ensemble Micrologus Edition (Micrologus 00010/3, 3CD + CD-ROM) is divided into three themes according to the Virgin, Jesus and the Saints, and the set of recordings is accompanied by a CD-ROM with a pdf electronic version of the entire Codex des Otes, as well as all the lyrics and three Italian essays. Ensemble Micrologus, an early musical group that specialized almost exclusively in medieval Italian repertoire, studied this type of repertoire. They determined the choice of mode by comparative study with the Florentine and Cantica repertoire; for intercrease notations, they chose a second note lower than the principal as a decorative note; and the accompanying instruments included trumpets, bells, portable organs, and viers. The soloist's voice is rough and the choir is sincere.
The Armoniosoincanto edition (Brilliant Classics 94872, 2015, 4CD), conducted by Franco Radicchia, is the latest rendition and even recites Lauda's hymns without sheet music. The troupe is mainly female vocals, and the singing style is more gorgeous and smooth, which is more pleasing to the ears of modern listeners. Compared to the Ensemble Micrologus version, the modalities, rhythms, orchestration, and arrangement (including the prelude, interlude, and postlude) are all very different, and the singing time is significantly longer than the former, especially the third song , Ave, Donna santissima ( The Most Sacred Woman ) , which is 11 minutes long , compared to the Ensemble Micrologus version of less than 5 minutes.
Marcel Pérès and the famous medieval choir Ensemble Organum, although not recording the entire collection, ingeniously compiled the seven Lauda hymns from the Hymns into a mysterious drama about the life of Jesus (Harmonia mundi HMC 901582, 1996), and several important moments in Jesus' life included the Reception of the Virgin Mary, Christmas, the pilgrimage of the Three Doctors of the East, the Prophecy of The Crucifixion, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Crucifixion, and the Crucifixion, and finally the Resurrection. Pérès argues that the traditional monophonic singing style and technique that Corsican singers still retain to this day is very close to the singing style of Lauda's hymns, and they also sing repetitive passages through improvisational variations of the basic melody.
Cortona Lauda's Collection of Hymns, the earliest collection of Italian songs, occupies an important place in the history of Italian literature and music. This lauda hymn that blends religious sentiments and secular styles, is simple and natural, devout and touching, and has a unique aesthetic value and experience. Although the Lauda Hymn declined by the end of the 16th century, its publication continued into the 19th century.
(Originally published in Sanlian Philharmonic Magazine, No. 11, 2020)