Quasi modo geniti infantes

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Quasi modo geniti infantes
General
Use: Introitus
Liturgical calendar : White Sunday / Dominica in Albis in Octava Paschae
Text origin: 1 Petr 2,2  EU , Psalm 81,2  EU
Mode : Sixth tone
Choral book : Gradual Triplex , p. 216

Quasi modo geniti infantes ( lat . "Like newborn children") is the incipit of the Gregorian introit to White Sunday .

text

Antiphon:
Quasi modo geniti infantes, alleluia:
rationabiles, sine dolo lac concupiscite.

Like newborn children, Hallelujah:
full of insight, without cunning, asks for milk.

Verse:
Exsultate Deo adiutori nostro.

Cheers to God, he is our help.

The antiphon of the chant comes from 1 Petr 2.2  EU , the verse comes from Psalm 80/81 ( Psalm 81.2  EU ). The beginning of the text, the incipit , is also the origin of another term for White Sunday as Sunday Quasimodogeniti . Via this detour, a character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame finally got his name: Quasimodo .

The text refers to the newly baptized on Easter Vigil , who in the early church wore their white baptismal robes to worship throughout the Easter octave and took them off on this Sunday, the “White Sunday”. Dom Guéranger compares these with the flowery, metaphorical style of the 19th century

"De tendres enfants remplis de simplesse, aspirant aux mamelles de la Sainte Église le lait spirituel de la foi, qui les rendra forts et sincères"

"Delicate children, filled with simplicity, who ask from the breasts of the Holy Church the spiritual milk of faith that makes them strong and sincere."

- Dom Guéranger : L'Année liturgique , Temps pascal I

melody

Introitus Quasi modo (Vatican) .png

The introit occupies a special position in many ways. It can best be compared with the Introit on the fourth Sunday of Easter, Cantate Domino canticum . Like this one is written quasi modo in the sixth tone . This is considered to be one of the freshest and most graceful of all church tones . The sixth tone is also a rare mode for introit chants; there are only seven other introit chants in the sixth tone among all Gregorian chants . What they all have in common is that they are hymns of praise of ethereal, delicate elegance and finesse. He thus musically interprets the naive simplicity of the neophytes of Easter Sunday.

Recordings

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Joseph Gajard : Les plus belles mélodies grégoriennes . Edition de Solesmes, Solesmes 1985, ISBN 2-85274-196-2 , pp. 151-154 (French, 270 pp.).