Everything about Ut Queant Laxis totally explained
Ut queant laxis or
Hymnus in Ioannem is a
plainchant hymn to
John the Baptist written by
Paulus Diaconus, the
8th 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 higher
note of the
hexachord. 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 of
John the Baptist. The full hymn is divided into three parts, with
Ut queant laxis sung at
Vespers,
Antra deserti sung at
Matins,
O nimis felix sung at
Lauds, 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 wasn't part of the medieval hexachord and doesn't 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.
The use of
Ut queant laxis to name the tones is usually attributed to
Guido of Arezzo in the
11th century.
See also
Further Information
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