- Ut queant laxis
"Ut queant laxis" or "Hymnus in Ioannem" is a
plainchant hymn toJohn the Baptist written byPaulus Diaconus , the8th century Lombard historian.It is notable in that each of the first six musical phrases of the first
stanza of the hymn begins on a successively highernote of thehexachord . The first syllable of each hemistich (half line of verse) has given its name to a successive note, since these syllables coincide with the ascending note pattern. The last line, "Sancte Ioannes", breaks the ascending pattern (for musical rather than pedagogic reasons) and begins with the note previously sung to "sol".In the
Roman Catholic Church , the hymn is sung in the Divine Office on June 24, the Feast of the Nativity ofJohn the Baptist . The full hymn is divided into three parts, with "Ut queant laxis" sung atVespers , "Antra deserti" sung atMatins , "O nimis felix" sung atLauds , and doxologies added after the first two parts.The first stanza is:
:"Ut queant laxis"::"resonare fibris",:"Mira gestorum"::"famuli tuorum,":"Solve polluti"::"labii reatum,":"Sancte Ioannes."
It may be translated: "So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John."
"Ut" is now mostly replaced by "Do" in
solfège due to the latter's open sound, probably inspired by the word "Dominus" (Lord). The seventh note was not part of the medieval hexachord and does not occur in this melody, and it was originally called "si" from Sancte Ioannes, but was later renamed "ti" to allow each name to start with a different letter.Fact|date=February 2007The use of "Ut queant laxis" to name the tones is usually attributed toGuido of Arezzo in the11th century .See also
*
Solfège External links
* [http://www.catholicculture.org/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1113 The full melody]
* [http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa092700a.htm An alternative translation]
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15244a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.