Civitas Sancti Tui - Byrd

[@seaotter4439]

The part that really gets me is the switch from polyphony to chordal harmony during the "Sion Deserta" part.

[@marshalivingston3120]

Our choir sang this last Lent. It's the saddest thing I have ever sung in my life. I LOVED it.

[@ykalantzis]

Oh ,the divine bass line ...Thank you

[@treesarecool12345678]

another absolute gem of the renaissance. Thank you Mr Byrd

[@alexandracolmant9983]

What a perfect recording of this piece!

[@holapeople24]

my favorite Byrd piece. It just displays so much emotion....

[@GBPHuddlestone]

Thank you for this. IT is overwhelming in its sense of loss.

[@andrewm9221]

Heavenly Father, you have taught us that in loving you and our fellow men and women we keep your commandments: Give us the spirit of grace and peace that we, united to one another in brotherly and sisterly love, may serve you with our whole heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[@Salvejohnny93]

Tears. Tears every time.

[@alexwarstadt6191]

It's hard to imagine a more beautiful performance of this most beautiful motet

[@andrew01]

Voces8 is fantastic.

[@jeffholston5443]

Saddest piece I know of written in a major key!

[@robertthomson1587]

So beautiful.

[@HappyHauptwerk]

Utterly beautiful part writing and interpretation.

[@finosuilleabhain7781]

Great to see this wonderful music being appreciated without any of the nonsense we associate with youtube comments. 9 dislikers so far, which is their loss - but no actual idiots.

[@carlooro7406]

One of my favourites too. Thankyou morphthing1

[@jeffholston5443]

Double-inflection at bar 46: a moment of sheer genius

[@leovanroosbroeck]

Great performance of wonderful music.

[@JR15491]

Suddenly so timely in these days of the Coronavirus.

[@Justanotherconsumer]

Lamentations is a brutal book to read. The commentaries even specify one example of a mother eating her children (which is referred to in the book), so they very likely they didn’t mean it metaphorically. We’re not there yet. May we be so lucky as to never see that kind of horror in any lifetime yet to come.

[@ppjjazz8885]

@@Justanotherconsumer unfortunately, we do. abortion isn't cannibalism, but it is still murder a mother commits against her very children, and even worse, it is accepted and welcomed

[@Justanotherconsumer]

@@ppjjazz8885 Serious crises compared to political hackers and nonsense issues manipulated to whip up support for those who want high birth rates so that they can treat human life as cheap and disposable. Opposition to abortion is not really a pro-life stance. Pro-birth nonsense is there to keep population numbers high so that when hundreds of thousands die, they’re “acceptable losses.”

[@chrisdoeller7332]

Right up there with Tallis' Lamentations.

[@missasinenomine]

Bow thine ear O Lord.

[@innocenzobarrera1505]

meraviglioso!

me encantan tus videos :)

[@richardtaylor7414]

Wonderful resource! RT

[@mrnnhnz]

Very very nice. I was singing along with it, and hadn't read your thing about it being performed a 3rd lower than written (a minor third I believe, but still...,) and kept thinking, 'What's wrong with my voice today? Why am I struggling to get those low notes? Then I read that intro...

@morphthing1 The original was in F (not G) and would have been sung at an organ pitch based on Renaissance wind pitch, which was almost a whole step higher than A440 (which is based on modern wind pitch). So the key of G@A440 represents an approximation of the original pitch at which Tallis's choir would have sung this work (which is actually scored in F). Falsettists were not used in churches in Tudor or Elizabethan England; the top two parts would have been sung by boys. The King's Singers have lowered the pitch to suit the range of their voices.

[@mentispotens8464]

How appropriate for today's state of Catholic Church.

[@TheErakor]

tres beau

[@treesarecool12345678]

well said :)

[@ransomcoates546]

I like the proper English pronunciation of Latin for the period.

[@timsymons968]

@treesarecool12345678 Not necessarily. True, the CS1589 print has a sharp at this point, although it may well be a misprint. None of the manuscript sources, which pre-date the print, has a sharp there. The most likely explanation of the sharp is that the clef was mistaken for G2, which would make the note F#, which is obviously highly likely if the line is cadencing onto G. However, the clef is C1, making the note a D#, which is rather less plausible, especially given the harmony.

[@kelvs5245]

Hello from Claret

[@апостолмандарин]

Я слушаю, знакомые какие-то голоса, это оказывается кингс сингерс уиии, спасибо

[@patrikmatyasek2892]

Правильно.

[@_PROCLUS]

А то

[@IsaacAsimov1992]

The closest I come to being religious is when I listen to music like this.

[@stephenkunst7550]

Everything is great, about this recording, though I wish the microphones were not so close. We hear none of the room in which they are singing. Reflected sound is too often seen as the enemy of text or tonal clarity. Its why so many concert halls have no reverb and people want to sit inches from the instrumentalists.

[@therealzilch]

A great piece (but when is Byrd not great?), very nicely sung. But I don't quite believe that E sharp in the soprano on the second beat of measure 22- even for Byrd that would have been a bizarre chromaticism.

[@missasinenomine]

Lamentations ch.1.

[@Justanotherconsumer]

Reading the book of Lamentations is a pretty bleak experience. There is one bit in the third chapter that’s a little bit optimistic, and there’s some of it that’s bitter and vengeful, but the big picture of the book is “this is horrible and we deserve every moment of it.”

[@AstOak125]

Is this stile antico or moderno?

[@treesarecool12345678]

Bar 22 in the sop line (that David Hurley is singing beautifully) should have an E#, not an E natural. It's a widely disputed note this, no knows what Byrd actually wrote

[@steelmongoose4956]

Interesting. I never knew there was a debate.

[@OmniaOmnibus]

I understand the idea of Renaissance pitch etc etc but it's rather confusing to have the singers in one key and the music in another.

[@therealzilch]

Great stuff. But are you really sure about that E# on the second quarter of the soprano in bar 22? Sounds kinda strange even for Byrd.

[@TheLawrieP]

If I remember correctly from the copies I have sung this from, it differs in some historical sources enough to necessitate an editorial decision and so may depend which modern edition is being sung from. Though I agree with you that the E# seems rather outlandish for the period to me

[@missasinenomine]

Yes, I agree. Not sure it's correct.

[@openmusic3904]

In musical practices of the time period there was a concept and device known as a ‘false-relation’. It sounds strange to the modern ear, but it was a widely accepted principle of theory and composition. The use of an e-sharp, in contrast with the f-sharp shortly after, strikes me as a routine false-relation. If I recall, it’s to do with voice-leading.

[@therealzilch]

@@openmusic3904 I'm familiar with and sung many false relations, which occur occasionally in Byrd's works and more commonly in Weelkes and Tallis. But I've never heard a major seventh suspension (between soprano and tenor at the beginning of bar 22) "resolve" to an augmented sixth, which is still dissonant against both other voices. It's not the false relation per se that sounds funny, but the strange harmonic motion. But maybe it's just me. If you know of any notated examples of this kind of harmonic motion in music of the period, I'd love to see them.

[@chrishughes5947]

Anyone know why they sing "Je-rusalem" rather than "Ye-rusalem" as is more traditional?

[@Zavendea]

I think they’re singing with English pronunciation as Byrd was English. Note also “sivitas” not “chivitas” for the first word.

[@MynameJeffX]

Translation?

[@SamuelVerceluz]

Civitas sancti tui Your holy cities Facta est deserta have become a wilderness Sion deserta facta est Zion has become a wilderness Jerusalem desolata est. Jerusalem has become desolate.

[@selgeaus]

Just a minor thing: Jerusalem's 'J' is supposed to be 'ye'. Other than that and different key, lovely interpretation

[@YKW2]

You may have also noticed "sivitas" rather than "chivitas". It's entirely deliberate; my assumption is that this is how Latin is thought to have been sung in Byrd's time.

[@cuipertinebit1382]

YKW2 Yes, the pronunciation of Latin in England was softer than in Italy, and we see this in the way that words were often "misspelled" (rather, followed a different spelling convention) in England. For example, both "t" before io, and "c," before i or e, are often rendered alike as "c" in Latin manuscripts of the British Isles. So, for example, "dicite in nacionibus," rather than "dicite in nationibus," where the pronunciation would have been "dee-see-tay in nah-see-oh-nee-boos," rather than the Italian pronunciation of "dee-chee-tay in nah-tsee-oh-nee-boos." It's why the "tion" suffix in English is still pronounced "shun" (as in nation) whereas the "tione" suffix in Italian is spelled with a g or z (depending) and pronounced "tsee-oh-nay" (as in nazione) or "joh-nay" (as in ragione). Or, why the "c" is soft in English "citizen," but aspirated in Italian "cittadino."

[@ido9988]

@@YKW2 Yes, this is the traditional English pronounciation of Latin. It's very much similar to how Latin words are pronounced in modern English. Today when people learn latin, they are usually taught the reconstructed classical pronounciation, which is the result of linguists using the existing evidence to deduce how the Romans spoke in ancient times, but in most recording of church music what you hear is the Italianate pronounciation, which was standardized by the Vatican in the 19th century. During Byrd's time, however, every country and region had it's own tradition based on its spoken language. If you are interested, here is how it would sound in classical latin: Keewitahs sahnctee tuee facta est dehsohlahtus. Sion dehsertus facta est, Hieroosalehm dehsohlahta est.

[@isaiahbaggett2758]

This is in sung E not G

[@abracadaverous]

+isaiah baggett Yeah, that was distracting me, and I don't even have absolute pitch.

[@asimong]

Or maybe it's F at baroque pitch?

[@albertklassik]

Because it's sung only by men. I think these are the King's Singers.

[@missasinenomine]

Jerusalem was reduced to cannibalism. Lam 4/10 Sad indeed!

[@Justanotherconsumer]

Not necessarily cannibalism for food, but sacrificial rites of the period included eating a piece of the sacrifice to identify with it (the penalty is death, I associate with that which has died and have paid the penalty). Sacrificing their own children to try and appease angry divinities (likely not YHWH, who with Isaac demonstrated a rejection of that kind of sacrificial rite).

[@missasinenomine]

@@Justanotherconsumer Jer 19/9. Ez 5/10. Sound like cannibalism to me!