Source of Gounod's "Domine salvum fac"?
Noam Elkies
the chorus and band assembled for the occasion will greet the
president of the university with a short fanfare by Gounod to the
text of "Domine salvum fac praesidem nostrum." Or perhaps I should say
a fanfare attributed to Gounod, since I have not been able to find it
anywhere. Anybody know where it comes from? The top line goes
something like this:
C . .CC |C C C |C B C D C |^G E |
Do - mine sal-vum fac prae-si- dem__ nos - trum,
C D E F . .F|D x |D D D . D |D C B A G |
nos-trum prae- si-dem, et ex- au - di nos in di-e qua
^G F E D F |E D |C ||
in- vo- ca- ve-ri-mus______ te.
Please reply by e-mail.
Thanks,
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@zariski.harvard.edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
Francois Velde
>Commencement will soon be coming to Harvard again, and by tradition
>the chorus and band assembled for the occasion will greet the
>president of the university with a short fanfare by Gounod to the
>text of "Domine salvum fac praesidem nostrum." Or perhaps I should say
>a fanfare attributed to Gounod, since I have not been able to find it
>anywhere. Anybody know where it comes from?
Grove's entry on Gounod lists a vocal work "Domine salvum fac" of 1853.
The response "Domine salvum fac regem" (Lord, save the King) was in use
in French churches since the 17th century at least, and served as a sort
of all-purpose national anthem (but only in religious ceremonies). The
practice of singing the fac salvum (or salvum fac) disappeared at the
Revolution, but was revived by Napoleon, with text thus altered: "Domine
salvum fac Imperatorem." When the monarchy returned in 1814, the word
"regem" was put back. In 1830, a revolution replaced the elder Bourbon
branch with the junior, more liberal Orleans branch, on the throne (sort
of like the Glorious Revolution), and Louis Philippe became king of the
French. Churches were then instructed to sing "Domine salvum fac regem
Philippum", since an unspecified reference to "the king" was ambiguous
(legitimists did not recognize Louis Philippe as king). Refusal to sing
the word Philippum was taken as a display of passive resistance to the
new regime.
Gounod's work dating from 1853, I imagine the words by then had returned
to "Imperatorem" (for Napoleon III, 1852-1870). With the advent of the 3d
republic in 1870, the hymn underwent yet another transformation, becoming
"Domine salvam fac rempublicam", which was still sung at mass around the
turn of the century.
There is a nice side-story to this: in 1686, Lully composed a French
version of the fac salvum in honor of Louis XIV, and it was sung by the
young girls of the school of Saint-Cyr, whose protector was Mme de
Maintenon, mistress of the king. Mme de Maintenon loved it, and introduced
it to the court of the exiled Stuarts in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, who
adopted it for their own. In 1745, the Jacobites were singing this
hymn at Culloden, and it was also adopted by the loyalists, to become...
"God save the King". Three former pensioners of St-Cyr testified in
1819 that the British hymn was part of the school's repertoire of hymns
from the early 18th c. on, and there is a clock in Versailles from the
first half of the 18th c whose chimes play "God Save the King".
Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology dismisses the story as "too absurd", of
course. My reference is the Quid 1992, but I don't know where they got
their information. It is a fact that the earliest appearance of "God Save
the King" is in 1745.
I expect a flood of denials from ever...@everywhere.uk, but I still like
the story. An Austrian wrote the German anthem, a German wrote the French
anthem, a Frenchman wrote the English anthem, an Englishman wrote the
American anthem...
--
Francois Velde
Noam Elkies
vel...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Francois Velde) writes,
in response to my question:
>Grove's entry on Gounod lists a vocal work "Domine salvum fac" of 1853.
You're right; it's right there in the beginning of the listing
of his music, operas excluded. I overlooked that one because
the setting we have is for accompanied men's voices and I was scanning
the long, densely-typed list for "TTBB" or somesuch. The 1853
setting gives "vv." (voices) and seems to be a cappella.
>The response "Domine salvum fac regem" (Lord, save the King) was in use
>in French churches since the 17th century at least, and served as a sort
>of all-purpose national anthem (but only in religious ceremonies). [...]
>[more fascinating history deleted]
>Gounod's work dating from 1853, I imagine the words by then had returned
>to "Imperatorem" (for Napoleon III, 1852-1870). With the advent of the 3d
>republic in 1870, the hymn underwent yet another transformation, becoming
>"Domine salvam fac rempublicam", which was still sung at mass around the
>turn of the century.
That's the other problem: "Imperatorem" doesn't fit the setting I posted;
not enough notes. Of the options you list, "rempublicam" (republicam?
respublicam? My knowledge of Latin is negligible, and it's almost the
same as far as prosody goes, anyway) comes closest to fitting the music.
We have "praesidem", and a second stanza replacing the President with
the American Nation(!) --- which looks like a later accretion, though
I suppose Gounod might have been commissioned to write it for an American
ceremony. (John Knowles Paine wrote a setting for male chorus and orchetsra
which was used for the inauguration of two Harvard presidents in the 1860s,
so it's not out of the question that another setting may have also been used
in the USA at the time.) Anyway we don't have the 1853 score here so
I can't tell for sure if the pieces listed in Groves is the same one
we use here at Commencement.
>[...]
>I expect a flood of denials from ever...@everywhere.uk, but I still like
>the story. An Austrian wrote the German anthem, a German wrote the French
>anthem, a Frenchman wrote the English anthem, an Englishman wrote the
>American anthem...
Yes, it does make a good story. (And either Mozart or Smetana nearly wrote
the Israeli national anthem, Ha-Tikva.* ) BTW, something funny happened to
Haydn's Emperor Quartet when it became the German anthem: it seems that the beat
shifted by half a measure. (Haydn wrote C .D|E D F E |DBC ^A G |F E D EC|^G
with a half-note upbeat, but the anthem is always rendered |C .DE D |F E DBC &c.
starting on beat one...)
--Noam D. Elkies (elk...@zariski.harvard.edu)
Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
(*) Ha-Tikva goes |ABCDE E |FEFAE |D DDC C |BABCA &c., of which both
Smetana's _Moldau_ and Mozart's variation in C-minor on the tune we know
as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" are close anticipations.