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Compositions

Beati omnes qui timent dominum
Jacotin


Edition

Transcription by Theodor Dumitrescu

XML score data



Sources listed in database

Source Loc. Title Voices Attribution
30
Beati omnes qui timent
3
 
[5]
Beati omnes qui timent dominum
3
 
XV-XVI
Beati omnes qui timent
3
"Iacotin"
15-16
Beati omnes qui timent
3
 
c2r-c4v
BEATI omnes qui timent Dominum
3
 
13-14
BEati omnes
3
"Iacotin"
15v-17r
BEati omnes qui timent Dominum
3
 

Incipits

LonBLR 11 E.xi
Beati omnes qui timent dominum incipit: LonBLR 11 E.xi

Text

Source: Psalm 127

Beati omnes qui timent dominum

qui ambulant in viis eius

labores manuum tuarum quia manducabis

beatus es et bene tibi erit

vxor tua sicut vitis abundans in lateribus domus tue

filii tui sicut nouelle oliuarum in circuitu mense tue.

Ecce sic benedicetur homo qui timet dominum

benedicat tibi dominus ex syon

et videas bona Jherusalem omnibus diebus vite tue

et videas filios filiorum tuorum

pacem super israhel.
Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD;

that walketh in his ways.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands:

happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house:

thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.

The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion:

and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children,

and peace upon Israel.

Editor's Commentary

The earliest datable appearance of the "psalm-motet" in England, although almost certainly a continental composition. Certain contrapuntal approaches and techniques are shared between this work, Quam pulcra es, and Hec est preclarum vas, altogether the final three pieces in LonBLR 11 E.xi (see Commentary to Quam pulcra es). As Quam pulcra es (no. 4 in the source) is ascribed to "Sampson", the implication here is perhaps that the attribution is intended to apply to the other two works as well (nos. 5 and 6).

Some earlier accounts of LonBLR 11 E.xi have considered the two halves of this composition as separate motets, but the musical and textual evidence is clear on this point. Fols. 15v-16r set verses 1-3 of Psalm 127 (mm. 1-83), and fols. 16v-17r set verses 4-6 to complete the setting (mm. 84-151). The number of voices and their disposition (each unique in the source) remain unchanged, as does the modal/tonal orientation. The main factor which has misled earlier commentators in separating the two partes is the fact that both openings in the manuscript receive painted initials, whereas all other motets in the book display illuminations only on their first openings. Janet Backhouse's observation, however, that these two sets of illuminations are the work of a different artist than the rest and much inferior to the others,[1] points to the conclusion that this is merely a later artist's misunderstanding of (or indifference to) the work's structure.

On the possibility that this composition is the work of "Sampson," see the Editor's Commentary to Quam pulcra es.


Notes
[1] Janet Backhouse, 'A Salute to the Tudor Rose', in Anny Raman and Eugène Manning (eds), Miscellanea Martin Wittek: Album de Codicologie et de Paléographie offert à Martin Wittek (Louvain and Paris: Peeters, 1993), pp. 1-10, at 2.



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