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Ubi CaritasDate: September 4, 2012 by Blair Boyd  Views: 2063
Does anyone know of a setting of Ubi Caritas by a Renaissance composer?
I know of multiple settings by contemporary composers (especially after Durufle).
Thank you.
Replies (8): Threaded | Chronological
Chris Watson on September 5, 2012 4:49am
I've been singing the stuff for 25 years and never come across one. Sorry!
Chris
on September 5, 2012 7:01am
There is of course the traditional Gregorian chant on which the Durufle is based that you could sing.
on September 5, 2012 4:37pm
Indeed, sung during the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday, but it is strange that there are no well known settings of this wonderful melody from the Renaissance period. Unless they all thought that the melody was so beautiful that they couldn't improve it. Would that certain modern composers (Durufle not included) could have exercised that restraint....
on September 5, 2012 12:12pm
BB,
I wrote a second part to the Gregorian Chant which has a hollow, mystical quality to it. Plus, my Anglican/Moravian head and heart are in the 15th cent. anyway. We've done it with the ATTB Compline Choir (Vox Trinitas) and this month will do it with SSAT Voces angelorum. So, both low pitch and high pitch. Send me a PM and your email address and I'll send it along as a pdf file. I think it works, but you'll be the judge of that.
regards, as always, jefe
on September 6, 2012 8:55am
Blair,
I checked Musica www.musicanet.org. There are 49 answers, and effectively only one, the gregorian anthem, is earlier than the 20th century.
I checked with a catholic priest (and president of the Union Saint Cécile, the Federation of Catholic Church Choirs) to have an explanation. Here it is:
the Ubi caritas anthem is sung in two occasions :
- the "Salute to the Holy Sacrament", a moment where absolute sobriety is the rule, thus no polyphony.
- on Maundy Thursday, during the ceremony of the "washing of the feet", where again, sobriety is the rule.
Thus, the liturgy was always leading to the use of the gregorian anthem.
One must here emphasize that Maurice Duruflé's setting is nothing else than an arrangement of the gregorian anthem, and Duruflé, as an organist, was probably often accompanying the gregorian chant with the organ.
All other settings that I find in Musica database appear to be posterior to Duruflé's one, what seems to show that the popularity of the setting of Duruflé broke the liturgical tradition and brought this text outside the strict use in the catholic liturgy.
Hope this helps...
Applauded by an audience of 2
on September 6, 2012 9:37am
Jean - I agree with your friend, the priest about the sobriety of the occasions on which "Ubi caritas" would be used, BUT - there is a caveat I have to throw into the mix.
While the first instance, "Salute to the Holy Sacrament" may very well be a moment where no polyphony is desired in the strictest interpretation, Maundy (or Holy) Thursday does not have quite the same restrictions in sobriety at all points, especially not during the washing of the feet ceremony. Unless one were celebrating Holy Thursday Mass in the Extraordinary Rite (Tridentine Rite, for most folks' knowledge), the Novus Ordo Rite setting is not so limiting in the choice of the music that's used. In fact, the liturgical vestments' color is white, which is a "joyful" coloring, and the various settings of "Ubi caritas" (correctly noted by you as mostly post-Durufle) are appropriate to the ceremony. I personally hadn't been aware of the long gap between the original Gregorian setting and the Durufle setting, which again as you noted correctly is the Gregorian setting as arranged by Durufle, probably from organ settings he had added to the chant. What's interesting, though, in light of what your friend for the Union Sainte Cecile told you, that Durufle would have even been permitted to ADD an organ underpinning of that relative complexity to the original chant, if indeed the sobriety of the moment demanded nothing more (or less) than the Gregorian chant. (Leave it to the French, eh?)
I wonder if there are any pre-modern settings of the "Mandatum Novum," the "New Commandment" ("I give to you a new commandment: love one another, as I have loved you.") I don't know; there's a modern setting by Ron Nardone (published by GIA and the Royal School of Church Music) which we've used at Ft. Belvoir in recent years for the washing of the feet. I hadn't been aware of the specificity of the use of "Ubi caritas" for that ceremony, so you've now given me something to look into.
Ron Duquette
Applauded by an audience of 1
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