Analyzing a few sequences, Part 1: Victimae paschali laudes

In an earlier entry about the medieval sequence I have already discussed the importance of this genre in the process of reconstructing the missing melodic lines and also to understand the structure of the poem which will lead me to understand the construction of the music as well.

This first example is the famous Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes, written by Wipo of Burgundy (mid. 11th-century) and this is one of the four sequences that the Council of Trent (1545-63) kept in the liturgy.

 

English translation of the text:

To the Pachal Victim, hymns of praise, come, ye Christians, joyous raise:

Lamb unstained, unmeasured price hath paid, ransom for the sheep that strayed.

To a father kind, rebellious men sinless Son hath led again.

Life and death in combat fierce engage, marvel dazzling every age.

Price of life by hellish monster slain living now shall ever reign.

Tell us, Mary, thou our herald be, what in passing thou didst see?

Empty tomb, where Christ, now living, lay.

Angels saw I in bright array: shroud and vesture loosely cast aside

Prove he's risen glorified.

Yea! my Hope hath snapped the fatal chain, smiting Death hath risen again:

quick before you, sped to Galilee.

(More trust is to be put in honest Mary [Magdalen] alone than in the lying crowd of Jews.)

Know we now that Christ hath truly risen.

Glorious King, help us while we sing.

Its structure was originally A BB CC DD, but the version that remained in the liturgical use lacks a repetition of phrase D, which has been officially removed by the Council of Trent because its nastiness and anti-semite content (along with almost all the other sequences from the liturgy). The original text follows the favored paired versicle structure (which was a characteristic of late French sequences), and the end of the lines are rhyming therefore theorists of that time called the rhymed and metrical sequences versus in order to distinguish them from the earlier prosa. 

The number of syllables in the phrases are well balanced and starting from Phrase B each last line of the phrases consist of 10 syllables and also the rhyme scheme within the identical phrases are following the same pattern (see table above).

As we take a look at the musical setting of the text, we can see that it is on Mode 1. The melody of Phrase A begins and ends on d, while Phrase B explores and uses the whole ambitus of Mode 1 including the characteristic use of the note below its finalis. Phrase C goes in the opposite direction than Phrase B and goes below the finalis with a fourth, but ends on d Phrase D has the same ambitus and direction as Phrase B.

The ambitus of the sequence is an octave plus a fourth (lowest: A, highest D'), and it is still in Mode 1, because although according to the theory the ambitus of each modus is an octave, later melodies move within the the range of an octave plus a third or fourth.

Although the form is not the same as Sion trure's, the ambitus is the same and the melodic material gives a little bit of information about the musical relation between the phrases. Of course, every modus has their own characteristic musical progressions and melodies in Protus tonality (mode 1 and 2) come up very often as well as in chant as in vernacular repertory. Also in sequences the textual and musical material in Phrase C is not shortened (like in the minnesinger piece by Wizlav or in Sion trure itself) comparing to the rest of the phrases.

Used sources:

Taruskin, Richard: Music from the earliest notations to the Sixteenth century, Oxford University Press, USA (July 27, 2009), Chapter 3: Retheorizing Music, pp 86-88

Hoppin, Richard: Medieval music, (Norton, 1978), Chapter VI, pp 164-166