Adeste Fideles

[steltz]

The famous Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) is classified as a hymn. What happens when someone (in this case, Benoit, Peter) takes the text and re-sets it to a different tune. Is it still a hymn?

[Davydov]

We should tag the new composition on its own merits. The religious text aspect only comes in if it changes a song to a sacred song, or a cantata to a sacred cantata, etc.

[steltz]

In researching this I found some interesting side tracks. It still is religious, so initially the question was really - hymns or the more generic sacred choruses or songs? According to Grove, Adestes Fidelis is a hymn, but it doesn't say what it bases that on, the music or the text or general usage.

In a different article, Grove defines a hymn (leaving aside the Ancient Greek side of things) in a couple of ways: 1) early Christian period, as a praise sung to God, as opposed to a psalm. In modern times, a 'sacred lyric for use in worship'.

Not being an expert in church music, it seemed to me that 'hymn' fits this. Then I checked WorldCat who listed the original Schott publication at U Mich. The subtitle is "Cantique pour Noel". A cantique would be tagged as a canticle, but there is a complication here -- a canticle takes its text from Scripture, and Adestes Fideles was definitely not taken from there.

Noel would be another possibility?

BTW, it also had a slightly different voicing in the Schott edition, so I'm guessing the Werner Icking upload is an arrangement. I'll change that part when I tag it.

[Edit] The tag would be "For solo voice, 3 equal voice choir and organ" which seems a bit complicated for our system of arrangements, but as long as that is defined properly in the system, is that OK?

[Davydov]

The tag would be "For solo voice, 3 equal voice choir and organ" which seems a bit complicated for our system of arrangements, but as long as that is defined properly in the system, is that OK?

For tagging I think all we need is "For solo voice, unison chorus, organ", as the number of parts in the unison chorus doesn't need to be taken into account there, although it should be in the "Instrumentation" field on the work page.

[pml]

A hymn is a metrical poem on a religious subject. In practice Adeste fideles is an irregular hymn since the metre changes slightly from verse to verse, but usually a hymn can be identified by the characteristics of verse poetry:

1. Regular metre (and yes, some hymns are “irregular”!)
2. Rhyming pattern (or very rarely, not)
3. Multiple verses combining 1 & 2 (although some hymns are only a single verse)
4. Religious subject matter

It’s also the poem that is the hymn, not the music. Take the words from O come all ye faithful and set it to a new tune, and the work would still be a hymn. Other terms for compositions like this: carols, noëls (the latter specifically refers to Christmas only: you can’t have a noël for any other time of year).

Note that Adeste fideles, while slightly irregular taken verse by verse, does conform to a rhyming scheme; translators will always attempt to replicate both the metre, rhyming scheme (the overall pattern rather than the same rhyming pattern), and subject matter when bringing it into a different language. It’s quite an art in itself, obviously.

P.

[steltz]

Thanks, Philip. I made one error in a previous post -- noels are tagged as "carols".

So the options are "canticles", "carols", or "hymns".

At this point, I'm favouring "carols". Agree, disagree?

[pml]

Carols is good for me, as is hymn.

P.