Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Gaudete!



Yes, dear Fr. H. reader, I know.  Gaudete is not for two more weeks.  In this case, Gaudete does not refer to the Sunday of the Church year, but rather a medieval carol which I learned about just recently from a blog post from my dear friend and brother in Christ, the Rev. Deacon Latif Gaba.

Gaudete is a sixteenth century piece first published in Scandinavia.  The lyrics in Latin and English are at the Wikipedia article.

It seems that British folk-rock band Steeleye Span recorded Gaudete in 1973, and it made the pop charts, only one of three Latin language songs to make the British top-50.  You can see and hear their performance here.  The male singers have a pretty harsh Barbarian accent, but the lady singer is more euphonic.



10 comments:

  1. My wife received a winter/Christmas Medieval Baebes album, with Gaudete on it. Perhaps better pronunciation, perhaps not. Musically fantastic, though.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obLayCNhbHw

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  2. I feel like I should have known about Steeleye Span, but I didn't. So thanks for the info. I wonder what the other Latin pop songs were.

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  3. Dear Ken: Cool! I look forward to checking that out.

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  4. Dear Latif:

    The Wikipedia article mentions them. I think one was a vocal rendition of Pie Iesu, and the other was an instrumental version of In Dulci Jubilo.

    The Te Deum has, so far, not made it to the Kasey Kasem show. But hope abounds... :-)

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  5. For Latin pop songs I like Gloria Estefan!

    (OK OK just uncharacteristically clowning around!)

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  6. Dear PE:

    I know what you mean. A local bar was advertising "Latin Night" and I was really looking forward to it. I figured it was going to be scholars in togas reciting passages of Cicero.

    It wasn't quite what I had in mind...

    (I'm uncharacteristically embellishing, of course...)

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  7. Hey Terry:
    I found (a portion of) your Lutheran Witness piece online. Nicely done.

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  8. Thank you, Deacon. The article as it appears in the December 2010 Lutheran Witness is a condensed version of the 2009 version of my !2 Days of Christmas post on my blogoral calendar. There will be a 2010 version on the blog, appearing in due time. What I like best is I was approached by them, I did not submit anything in hopes of being published.

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  9. Excellent post, Fr. Hollywood.

    Naxos had published some very affordable CDs of the Piae Cantiones. Don't recall if it has Gaudete on it or not, but there are some other interesting Latin carols.

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