Download "Candle Burning Bright" (mp3, 2.5 MB)
"Candle Burning Bright" by Donna Adams-Profeta
About twenty years ago I discovered the internationally known a cappella group, Anonymous 4, and became enamored of the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Marian hymns recorded on their CD, An English Ladymass: Medieval Chant and Polyphony. I immersed myself in their recordings (including The Lily and The Lamb: Chant and Polyphony from Medieval England) and other recordings and treatises of that era—the polyphonic pieces in particular. While I don't consider myself a scholar by any means, I felt compelled to attempt my own composition in a manner as close to that style as I could manage via osmosis. I tried to emulate a two-part treatment with separate, simultaneous sets of lyrics, as was often done at the time. Sometimes several parts were written, with no two in the same language and with disparate ideas, i.e., the Latin might praise the Virgin Mary, while an English part recounts the exploits of Robin Hood! However, having not studied Latin (or any other early language), I opted to write both sets of lyrics in modern English, and as a proper Marian hymn. Both parts actually share the same lyric in the chorus, but it is sung to different melodic lines and the two voices come together, in both the verses and the chorus, on "gloria."
I could have stopped there, as my original idea was to come as close as possible to what was sung at the time, within the realm of my personal restrictions (no Latin and a voice that's a bit heavy on the vibrato), but I kept hearing my harp behind the vocals, so I crossed another line and recorded simple, open chords behind the vocal tracks. I promised myself that that would be the limit of my modernizations, until my husband, John, started playing the perfect string track and I couldn't resist adding it to the second verse. The final addition was the occasional sounding of a triangle. Whether triangles were used at the time or that constitutes the final insult, I'm not sure, but if my composition appeals to modern sensibilities enough to nudge them into seeking out historical recordings of period pieces, then I'll count it a success.
The calligraphic ornament above is based on a fourteenth-century design detail appearing in Plate No. 11 of W. R. Tymms, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times ... (London: Day and Son, 1860.) The roundel frames above were derived from a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript depicting the "Vision of Isaiah" attributed to Girolamo Da Cremona, now housed in the Libreria Piccolomini, Duomo, Siena.
