Cappella Nova - Columba, Most Holy of Saints

LAUDS FOR THE FEAST OF ST. COLUMBA
1. Versicle & Response - 0.45
2. Deus in adiutorum - 0.40
3. Psalm 92 (93) - 3.55
4. Psalm 99 (100) - 3.13
5. Psalms 62 (63) & 66 (67) - 5.48
6. Benedicti - 6.10
7. Psaims 148. 1 49 & 150 - 8.28
8. Capitulum - 0.23
9. Hymn Aurora rutilat - 4.23
10. Versicle & Response - 0.17
11. Benedictus - 7.06
12. Prayer - 1.15
13. Benedicamus Domino - 0.14
14. Memorial of Sts. Primus & Felicianus - 1.02
15. Versicle & Response - 0.15
16. Prayer - 1.44


CANTICLES & RESPONSORIES
17. Vespers Responsory for the Sunday within the Octave - 2.51
18. Vespers Responsory for the Octave of St. Columbo - 2.10
19. Magniflcat for the Octave of St. Columba - 6.37
20. Responsory for the Second Vespers of the Octave of St. Columba - 2.30
21. Maanificat for the Second Vespers of the Octave of St. Columba - 5.57
22. Benedictus for the Sunday within the Octave of St. Columba - 4.51
23. Memorial of St. Columba - 1.40

It is a little after midnight on 9 June. The Augustinian monks of the Abbey on the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth file down the night stairs and into the Abbey church. No unrecognised ships in the Firth or on the horizon have been spotted by the look-out before nightfall. The community knows that it can celebrate the feast day of its Patron Saint free from the fear of English pirates that harry it from time to time during the summer months, St Columba looks after his own.

Down in the church, the altar seems ablaze with light. In 1256, Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, had established an annual grant for 20 candles to be lit on the altar during the vigil and feast of St Columba, to add to those usually burning. The monks enter and move to their places, three rows on each side facing each other across the choir. All of their life is taken up with the struggle of good against evil, of the power of God against demons, of light against darkness. Tonight, the glorious brightness of the altar reminds them that on this day of all days they have help in the struggle from the shining example of the Patron of their own Abbey, St Columba.

After the Te Deum at the end of the long service of Matins, there is silence for a few moments, and then the voice of the Abbot is heard: In sermone suo siluif ventus. The service of Lauds has begun ...

The monks sing from memory in the flickering darkness, prompted by the Precentor and the Rulers, On this special day the antiphons are sung in full at the beginning of each psalm, psalm group or canticle, before the Gloria Patri (prior to which the choir turns to face the altar), and after it too. Each antiphon calls forth echoes in the minds of the singers of readings that they have heard from the Life of the Saint. The Inspiration of St Columba is but one aspect of the wonderful works of the Lord. for which the monks praise Him in the magnificent psalms and canticles prescribed for this service. The Capitulum and the Prayers are not committed to memory but are read by the Abbot with the aid of a boy bearing a book and a light. During the Benedictus, the altar and the choir are censed, suffusing the whole church with a sweet fragrance.

This day is also the feast day of Saints Primus and Felician and a memorial of them is sung at the end of Lauds. As the early morning sunlight begins to filter into the dark church, the monks then file out of the choir and back to the dormitory for a few hours of sleep before the work of the day.

The surviving music for the Feast of St Columba is found in Edinburgh University Library MS 21 l.iv, a fourteenth-century fragment of on appendix to an Antiphoner. The clue to the provenance of the manuscript is provided by the text of the Antiphon to the Magnificat at Vespers on the Octave of St Columba, which contains the words locumque istum tibi deditum - 'and this place dedicated to you'. The manuscript clearly belonged to an establishment dedicated to St Columba. Might it perhaps have belonged to Dunkeld Cathedral, or to the monastery of lona? The first conformed to Salisbury use in the fourteenth century and the second was a Benedictine establishment; the other item in the manuscript, the Office of Corpus Christi, follows neither use. The remaining possibilities are the Priory of Oronsay and the Abbey of Inchcolm. A charter of 1256 records that Richard, Bishop of Dunkeld, granted 20s to the Abbey of Inchcolm for the maintenance of 20 candles burning on the high altar on the vigil and day of St Columba, implying that the Inchcolm celebration was of some importance. Such lavishness is echoed in the manuscript, in the provision of music for the Octave of the Feast, for which no other source survives. This points to Inchcolm as being a likely place of origin of the manuscript.

A further historical hint is provided in the text of the Antiphon to the Benedictus at Lauds of Sunday within the Octave of St Columba, which contains the words servo chorum ab incursu Angicorum - 'save (this) choir from attack by the English'. The Scotichroni-con records that English pirates plundered the Abbey of Inchcolm in 1336. The problem continued throughout the fourteenth century and well into the fifteenth - the Scotichronicon notes in 1421 that the Abbot and his convent spent summer and autumn on the mainland, for fear of the English. Although there is no documentary evidence of these difficulties before 1335, the building plan of the Abbey suggests that it may have been prone to attacks in the late thirteenth century. Sometime towards the end of the thirteenth century, the entire complex was remodelled so that the ground floor of the building surrounding the cloister contained nothing but the cloister walk, with the refectory, dormitory and other domestic apart- ments arranged in the usual manner but on the first floor rather than the ground floor. This highly unusual construction may have been for defensive purposes. English pirates, in any case, were a fact of life for the inhabitants of Inchcolm over a long period, making the text of this antiphon most appropriate for this institution.

How old is this music? A small portion of the St Columba material uses tunes belonging to the standard repertory of Gregorian chant. A slightly larger proportion uses chants closely related to Salisbury use which was gradually adopted in Scotland from the mid-twelfth century onwards. Other pieces are rather more vaguely connected to Salisbury tunes and some, including 0 mira regis Christi clementia, 0 Columba insignis signifer and Sanctorum piissime Columba, appear to be unique. Perhaps these last pieces are older still. The Scotichronicon reports that Inchcolm Priory, the forerunner of the Abbey, was founded around 1123. The patrons and protectors of the Priory until at least the thirteenth century were the Bishops of Dunkeld. Now it was to Dunkeld that King Kenneth I had the relics of St Columba brought from lona in 849, so the Feast of St Columba would have been kept there from the mid-ninth century. It is not known what would have been sung at Dunkeld before the reorganisation of the Cathedral along Salisbury lines in the early thirteenth century, but there was a whole century in which it was possible, and even likely, that the early Dunkeld St Columba services influenced Inchcolm. Do these apparently unique chants belong to the missing corpus of Celtic chant? The answer is lost in the mists of time.

How was this music sung? We shall never know exactly. From the thirteenth century onwards it is fairly clear that the rhythmic basis was one of equal note lengths. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that a repeated pitch on a single syllable represented a longer note. Some notes are ornamental: the plica was literally a 'folding' or bending of a note, usually on a voiced consonant, in the direction of motion of the chant. Being ornamental, it was probably shorter than the standard duration, but sometimes the note supporting it may have been slightly lengthened. Other notes, such as the final notes of phrases, were probably also slightly lengthened. This was not a written tradition; what is frozen on the page was for reference only and may be more of a skeleton than we suppose. This performance fleshes out the skeleton occasionally with an added plica where it seems musically logical. Matters of scoring of choral sections have been left to the discretion of the choirmaster, as would probably have been the case centuries ago.