Saxon Solfege

[David Olson]

Tim Cook's query made me curious about what Brother Martin actually says about music

raises two questions...

 

 In musica b f a b m i est euangelium.

Tischreden 3: no. 2996.

(within series)

Martin Luther. Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 66 vols. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus, 1883-1993.

IS

b f a b m i

Saxon solfege? 

Why only six notes? 

(1) Is he saying that solfege is the gospel in music? 

In the parallel thread, Tim Cook wrote

> Martin Luther is supposed to have asked “Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?”

The use of "supposed to" ... what it really means is that, when Lutheran preachers are ordained, they receive a special chrism which allows them to invent pure ****, and this is one of the turds. 

Martin Luther believed that music drives away the devil. Luther repeatedly cited the Biblical story where Saul is possessed by an evil spirit, and David's music drives it away. 

 the (perhaps historically documentable) claim that "Martin Luther took bar songs and used them for hymns". 

But this actually refers to musical notation: the use of bar lines to mark regular measures. 

If you want congregational singing, you need predictable meter. I think that's the principle at work. 

(For example, the Ravenscroft Psalter does not use bar lines)

(2) What is the first use of bar lines in a Psalter in the British Isles?

With non-euclidean curiosity, I am,

very sincerely yours,

david olson

los angeles

p.s. 2019 PhD dissertation by Yakub E. Kartawidjaja, on this side of the paywall.

http://theoluniv.ub.rug.nl/242/1/Yakub%20Dissertation.pdf

"good song" was definitely a term of the art for ML

long discussion about what this meant to ML

[Warren Steel]

[Martin writes:]

>>> "In musica b f a b m i est euangelium."

David asks:

>>> IS b f a b m i Saxon solfege?

No this refers to the letter B which may be round (as FA) or square (as MI). The two symbols have become are flat sign and sharp (and natural) sign. Even today the Germans refer to our B-flat as B (round B) and our B natural as H (square B). Hence the use of the letters B-A-C-H to make a musical theme in The Art of Fugue. I guess that's the "good news" of Guido's hexachord. UT RE MI FA SOL LA

>>>the (perhaps historically documentable) claim that "Martin Luther took bar songs and used them for hymns".
>>>But this actually refers to musical notation: the use of bar lines to mark regular measures.

IMHO (depending on who said it), this has nothing to do with either tavern music or measure lines. Bar is the German term for a musical form AAB (Stollen Stollen Abgesang), a common musical form that embraced virtually the entire repertory of the Meistersingers, as well as the French ballade and the Italian 14th-century madrigal. Luther's "Ein feste Burg" is in this form, as are a great many Chorales (hymn melodies) used by Lutherans.
--
Warren Steel mu...@olemiss.edu
Professor of Music Emeritus University of Mississippi
http://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/