The Queen Stands • Astitit Regina
Finally on the mend after a protracted illness, I found myself only days away from the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessèd Virgin Mary and in need of a psalm setting for Mass. While there are a handful of well-known settings of Psalm 45 “The Queen stands at Your right hand, arrayed in gold.” (Owen Alstott’s comes to mind; it’s a little ear-worm), as usual I was eager to see if ancient plainchant could inform a new, modern edition of my own.
After copious amounts of online searching (how did they do it before the internet?!) I found myself joyfully viewing a 14th century manuscript, the Antiphonarium pro Ecclesia Einsidlensi, c. 1300-1314, which helpfully sets the text of the refrain to chant:
I encourage you to view the original image in its full glory here.
Perhaps a more literal translation of what you see above would actually be,
“Stands the queen at Your right hand, in robes of gold, finely arrayed.”
Ancient manuscripts are fascinating in a number of ways—not least of which is simply the mystique of their age. It’s fascinating to stare at the page of a book written over 700 years ago! It’s also fascinating to see how lovely old books were… great care was taken in their manufacture and embellishment. This is one of the reasons I’m so adamant about using beautiful fonts and typography in my musical editions and in the worship aids I create. I make frequent use of drop caps specifically in homage to this tradition.
Here is how the refrain will appear in the worship aid this weekend:
This antiphon is no longer very common at least compared to other chants. (It is not part of the collection of chants in the Liber Usualis, for instance.) Thus, I couldn’t find reference for it in gregobase. (This is, in fact, one of the very first time a chant I’ve sought after has not been indexed in gregobase!)
ADDENDUM: My pastor shared with me that this antiphon likely dates to an ancient office for Our Lady. The office for the Feast of the Assumption was changed when the dogma of Her assumption was proclaimed; if this antiphon was formerly a part of an ancient office honoring the assumption, this change likely accounts for its disappearance from modern editions.
Fortunately, a very helpful archive had listings for “Astitit Regina” and links to the various online libraries that post scans of ancient manuscripts with this antiphon, complete with the specific folio numbers. (God bless the scholars that have assembled this incredible resource!)
After comparing a few of the various manuscripts, I settled on the Einsidlensi codex because it was comparably ancient but just “modern” enough that I could actually decipher the notation. That said, I will state here and now that the scribe was rather sloppy and I did have to compare this version to a few other manuscripts to settle on my interpretation of it. (This is to say nothing of how difficult it is to read the latin script, which would have been totally impenetrable to me had I not first looked up the vulgate translation of this psalm.)
As far as my new setting is concerned, I took the incipit, "Astitit" and combined it with "vari(eta)te" at the end, so the overall arch of the antiphon is respected in terms of both its notable opening and its final cadence. I did, however, change how the notes were grouped to make it flow more easily in English. (I also have to be careful that my settings don't get too florid otherwise the congregation won't sing them.)
For the verses, the first half of the verse is inspired by the formula for "regina a dextris" and the second half of the verse is "tuis" (it should be noted that the medieval scribe was particularly sloppy here, and this is an area where I did compare the notation of this manuscript to others. It seems the scribe offset repeated notes halfway between the lines and spaces making it really neither one nor the other. There is also a blotch on the scan which leads one to presume a correction was attempted.)
In the end, I prepared two notated editions: the first is notated for the organist and maintains sustained and tied/slurred note values wherever possible; this is the method I would suggest any organist approach the accompaniment (if sung melody only, or SATB). The second edition is notated in a way that is choir/SATB friendly and does not require inner voice parts to extrapolate from the sustained notes the organist would be playing in the first edition.
To purchase a copy of the score, please visit this page.
