Advent responsories: Rejoice ye heavens (Responsories pt 5)

Today I want to continue my series on the history and function of the responsories of the Night Office, with a focus on the Advent set.

In each post I plan to highlight one of the responsories, but also discuss some of the context around their development, which, I should note, is a subject on which there is no consensus among musicologists and/or liturgiologists!

Rejoice ye heavens

So for our Advent focus, today's responsory is actually the second responsory for Monday in weeks 1& 2 of Advent, also used as the eighth responsory in the Benedictine Office on the First Sunday of Advent.

The text of this responsory received several polyphonic settings, including by Orlando di Lasso, and Byrd, the latter of which I've chosen for today, as it gives a wonderful sense of the joy of the season that is one of its sub-themes, along with the focus on Our Lady, and preparation for Christmas  - and the Second Coming - through repentance for sins.

The text of the respond section has been adapted from Isaiah 49:13; the verse comes from Psalm 71:7, although there are two alternative verses  associated with this respond preserved in various sources.

Here is a translation of the text showing the structure of the responsory when it is used as the last responsory of a set (as it is on the First Sunday of Advent) -  in its other uses it ends after the first repetition of the second half of the respond.

R. Læténtur / cæli, et exsúltet terra, iubiláte, montes, laudem: † quia Dóminus noster véniet, * Et páuperum suórum miserébitur. V. Oriétur in diébus eius iustítia, et abundántia pacis. R. Et páuperum suórum miserébitur. V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. R. Et páuperum suórum miserébitur.

R. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains, for our Lord will come; * And will have mercy on his afflicted. V. In his days shall righteousness flourish and abundance of peace. R. And will have mercy upon his afflicted. V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. R. And will have mercy upon his afflicted.

This text also nicely illustrates the adaptation process that is typical of responsories - while the first half of the respond follows the biblical text closely (the variants probably just reflecting different versions of the Biblical text, the second part is heavily adapted, in order to help us apply the text to its liturgical context:

Isaiah 49:13 actually reads (I've bolded the words where alternatives have been substituted into the respond):

Laudate, cæli, et exsulta, terra; jubilate, montes, laudem, quia consolatus est Dominus populum suum, et pauperum suorum miserebitur.

Stock responsories (2)

I noted in an earlier post that this repertoire of chant seems to have been preserved largely through oral transmission.  Some eighth century (and a few other, mostly non-Roman earlier) sources give incipits or even full texts for some of them, but it wasn't until the development of neumes around the mid-ninth century, that the melodies were notated. I also noted that there is evidence the number of responsories expanded substantially over time, particularly once musical notation made the transmission process easier.

Most of the expansion in the repertoire, after the eighth century at least, though, relates to specific feasts, displacing the use of the Commons, rather than those relating to the annual bible reading cycle or the seasons.  

Even now, for most of the year, for example, rather than new responsories, the Sunday responsories are said again during the week, as was the case for the responsory discussed above.

But there do also seem to have been other key sources of 'stock' responsories that could be drawn on to fill out the necessary number on Sundays and major feasts.  

Individual semi-fixed responsories 

One source was individual responsories that had some broader appropriateness, such as that relating to the patron saint of a church.  St Peter's in Rome, for example, seems to have used the responsory Petro amas me (Peter do you love me) throughout the year.  

Similarly, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) composed the responsory Duo seraphim clamabant, (two seraphim called out, each to the other) and mandated its use as the last responsory of Sunday Matins for much of the year.

De Psalmiis responsories

A second source of 'stock' responsories seems to have been those based on the psalms, as one of the Roman 'ordines', XVI, which (probably) dates from circa 680, mentions a set of of psalm based responsories used throughout the year and for feasts.  

Unfortunately Ordo Romani XVI (and the other Ordines and other early sources), don't actually tell us which particular responsories were used this way.

In the forms of the Office that have come down to us, there are actually several groups of psalm based responsories: some are used for particular feasts (in some cases parts of sets used at other times of the year as well), but the main ones are three sets now used in conjunction with Biblical 'letters', namely Jeremiah in Holy Week; the Catholic Epistles in Eastertide; and the letters of St Paul, in Epiphanytide.

It is the last set, those used in Epiphanytide since the reorganisation of the Matins reading cycle in the eighth century, that are of especial interest, since the liturgists have long claimed them as evidence that Rome had a fixed weekly psalm cycle before St Benedict's Office.

My own view is that the particular organisation of them in the Office as we know it is more likely to be a product of the eighth century reforms than witness to the earlier organisation of the psalter.  

But to understand the debate, we need first, I think, to look at the history of the Matins readings cycle in Rome, and some of the possible sources for the responsories, on which more anon.