Sub Arturo plebs vallata; Fons citharizancium; In omnem terram

Three-voice motet by Johannes Alanus

Sources

Bologna: Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Ms Q 15, fol. 225v-226 (3/2), 342v (Triplum, incomplete);
Chantilly: Bibliothèque du Musèe Condè 564, fol. 70v-71 (3/2);
Yoxford: [manuscript in private possession, on deposit in Keble College Library, Oxford], fol. 1 (3/2).

Facsimiles

1. WOLF, Johannes. Musikalische Schrifttafeln, Leipzig: 1923, plates 30-31 (CH564).
2. GENNRICH, Friedrich. Abriss der Mensuralnotation des XIV und der ersten Hälfte des XV Jahrhunderts, Nieder-Modau: 1948. Musikwissenschaftliche Studienbibliothek 3-4, plates XVIIIa-b (CH564).

Editions

1. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Das Wort-Ton Problem bei Motetten des späten 14. Jahrhunderts', Festschrift Heinrich Besseler zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, Leipzig: 1961, p. 169.
2. The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musèe Condè, 564 (olim 1047) and Modena, Biblioteca Estense, a M. 5,24 (olim lat. 568), edited by Ursula Günther, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1965. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 39, p. 49.
3. Motets of French Provenance, edited by Frank Ll. Harrison, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1968. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century V, p. 172.
4. Two 14th-Century Motets in Praise of Music, edited by Margaret Bent, Devon: Antico Edition AE 15, 1986, p. 1 (Bc15).

Literature

1. COUSSEMAKER, Edmond de. Les harmonistes du XIVe siècle, Paris: 1869.
2. DAVEY, H. History of English Music, 2nd edition, London: 1921, pp. 55-56.
3. REANEY, Gilbert. 'Voices and instruments in the music of Guillaume de Machaut', Revue belge de musicologie, X (1956), p. 98 n. 1.
4. TROWELL, Brian. 'A fourteenth-century ceremonial motet and its composer', Acta Musicologica, XXIX (1957): 65-75.
5. WILKINS, Nigel. 'The post-Machaut generation of poet-musicians', Nottingham Medieval Studies, XII (1968), p. 52.
6. SANDERS, Ernest. 'The mediaeval motet', Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, Erste Folge, Bern, Munich: 1971, pp. 497-573.
7. GALLO, F. Alberto. Il Medioevo, vol. II, Turin: Edizioni di Torino, 1977. [English translation as Music of the Middle Ages, vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985], p. 78.
8. WILKINS, Nigel. Music in the Age of Chaucer, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1979. Chaucer Studies I, pp. 87-88.
9. SANDERS, Ernest H. 'Motet. I. Mediaeval. 3. Ars Nova', The New Grove, XII (1980): 625-628, 646.
10. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Sinnbezüge zwischen Text und Musik in Ars nova und Ars subtilior', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by U. Günther and L. Finscher, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984, p. 266.
11. BENT, Margaret. 'Text setting in sacred music of the early 15th century: evidence and implications', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984, pp. 315-316.
12. GOMEZ, Maria del Carmen. 'Une version a cinq voix du motet "Apollinis eclipsatur/Zodiacum signis" dans le manuscript E-BCEN 853', Musica Disciplina, XXXIX (1985): 5-44.
13. LEFFERTS, Peter M. The Motet in England in the Fourteenth Century, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986, pp. 87, 183, 301.
14. BOWERS, Roger. 'Fixed points in the chronology of English fourteenth-century polyphony', Music and Letters, 71 (1990), pp. 320-323.

Recordings

Music from the Hundred Year War, Musica Reservata, directed by John Beckett (1969): Philips 6747 004 (set 5) (INT).

Text

TRIPLUM

Sub Arturo plebs vallata
plaudat melos; laus ornata
psallatur altissimo.
Anglis conferentur grata
eventu piissimo.

En militia cum clero
floret; musicorum vero
chorus odas iubilat,
e quibus modo sincero
J. de Corbe emicat.

Cuius non previsas posco
res, quas J. de Alto Bosco
reserat theorica,
qua fulgens vernat, ut nosco,
G. Martini practica.

Piis placent ac tyrannis
res Ricardi Blith, Johannis
necnon de Oxonia,
arte cuius multis annis
fulsit Cantuaria.

Sed G. Mughe, radix florum,
det generibus melorum;
Edmundus de Buria
basis aurea tenorum
est, quem fovet curia.

Princeps bellicus probavit,
quas ex Blith G. res creavit,
rutilantes oculo,
Episwich J. quas gustavit,
mire vocis modulo.

Flosd Oxonie miratur,
Nicholaus qui vocatur
de Vade Famelico;
et de Muris coniungatur
his triplo mirifico.

Prepollet G. de Horarum
Fonte lira, vox non parum;
mulcet auris Symonis
Clementis os cuius clarum
manus nitet organis.

Pangeat Adam Levita
precellenter. Quorum vita
sana diu vigeat
ut et illis, qua finita,
porta celi pateat.


MOTETUS

Fons citharizantium
ac organizantium
Tubal predicatur,
musice primordia
sculpens, ut ystoria
Genesis testatur.

Pondera Pytagore
numerorum decore
artis vernat legem,
quam rimans Boecius
propalavit latius.
Regum laudans regem

doctrina Gregorii,
gesta Dei filii
canit omnis ordo.
Guido dans inicia,
lineas et spacia
dedit monocordo.

Sed Franco theorice
dat mensuram musice,
quam colores ligant.
Fontes hii sunt seculi,
adhuc quorum rivuli
cuncta regna rigant.

Huius pes triplarii
bis sub emiolii
normis recitatur,
ut hii pulsent Dominum,
quorum numeri nonum
triplo modulatur.

Illis licet infimus
J. Alanus minimus
sese recommendat,
quatenus ab invidis
ipsum sonis validis
laus horum defendat