Pentecost and Music

Thursday, May 12, 2016

For many, “Pentecost” (Whitsun) and “music” call to mind the striking setting of the Pentecost hymn Veni Creator Spiritus in Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. A look in the RISM database shows the versatile musical forms the text has taken. The 1,276 RISM records range from Heinrich Finck (ca. 1444-1527), who is represented with two settings in the Sacrorum hymnorum (Liber primus) from 1542 (RISM B/I: 1542|12), to Joseph Haas (1879-1960), whose autograph manuscript from 1960 (RISM ID no. 456081224) is in RISM. Sources are especially abundant by the composers Franz Xaver Witt (36x) and Victor Eder (34x).

The Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus has been set to music even more often than the Pentecost hymn. In RISM, there are over 1,600 sources, with many by Niccolò Jommelli and Michael Haydn. Haydn’s setting in E-flat major (MH 366) was especially popular and is preserved in manuscripts in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland.

Other music manuscripts concerning Pentecost – a total of 4,341 – can be found when you do an Advanced Search and select the field Liturgical festival. Enter Pentecostes. From there, you will see that you can also search for other music relating to the Pentecost season, such as Pentecost Monday (Whit Monday): pentecostes, feria ii.

Image: The melody of Veni Creator Spiritus, by Der wahre Jakob via Wikimedia Commons.

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