Királyi zászló jár elöl - Vexilla Regis Prodeunt by Venantius Fortunatus / Simon Jukundián

Описание: Királyi zászló jár elöl - Vexilla Regis Prodeunt - The Royal Banner Forward Goes
A hymn of 5 notes for the 5th Sunday (Passion or Black Sunday) after Lent / for Good Friday
Népének 5 hangból, böjt 5. , Judicare vasárnapjára / Nagypéntekre

https://enekeskonyv.lutheran.hu/enek1...
http://nepenektar.hu/enek/214/kiralyi...

The text, based on the poem of Venantius Fortunatus, has become part of the Latin mass on the 5th Sunday of Lent, also called as Passion Sunday (1 week before Palm Sunday, 2 weeks before Easter). It is also called Black Sunday, concerning the crucifixion and death of Jesus.

The lyricist of this beautiful chorale is
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c.530-c.609 AD), a Latin poet and hymnographer, a master wordsmith of the Frankish Merovignian royalty. Born in Treviso near Venice, died in Gaul as the Bishop of Poitiers. He was the friend of Queen Radegund, 1 of the 5 wives of Chlotar I, King of the Franks of the Merovingian dynasty; and of Gregory of Tours, a gallo-roman historian and Bishop of Tours. They liked to discuss religious, political and art matters together.

The Latin words carry the lilt of an iambic tetrameter: an upbeated rhythm, made of alternating syllables of

short-/ long, short-/long, short-/long, short /long; in each 4 lines of a stanza:

Vexilla Regis prodeunt;
fulget Crucis mysterium,
quo carne carnis conditor
suspensus est patibulo.

The English version also follows upbeated the rhythm of the Latin text:

The Royal Banner forward goes,
The mystic Cross refulgent glows:
Where He, in Flesh, fleshly who made,
Upon the Tree of pain is laid.

Although the Hungarian version could easily be pronounced with the upbeated rhythm of the Latin text, the rhythm here has been modified due to accents always falling on the first beat in Hungarian language, therefore the first upbeats of each line have become downbeats, resulting in 3 short notes in the first bar:

short short short / long -short / long short / complete long; in all 4 lines of the stanza:
https://enekeskonyv.lutheran.hu/enek1...
http://nepenektar.hu/enek/214/kiralyi...

Királyi zászló jár elöl,
Keresztfa titka tündököl,
Melyen az élet halni szállt,
S megtörte holta a halált.


There has been several melodies set to this poem, and the one we play is a Lutheran hymn of Hungary today,

first published in the town of Nagyszombat in 1651, and also in the Polish Kancyonal in Gdansk in 1636. It has the toneset of a Do pentachord: s-f-m-r-d.

The original Latin poem has 10 stanzas, the English translation has 9 and the Hungarian has 6, all displayed further below.

The players belong to the same family:
The French horn player, Lilla, and the tenor horn player, Anna, are sisters, playing with their bassoon player mum, Zsuzsa. They are part of a family where music training starts as Zoltán Kodály described: 9 months before their own mum's birth. Lilla has very recently started to play the horn and learned her fifth note 5 days before this video was shut. As you can see, playing 5 notes on any wind instrument really calls for a celebration... Her sister Anna was playing trumpet for 17 months before changing into Tenor Horn, 4 days before this video was made. Their mum, music teacher of Liverpool Kodály School, has prepared the arrangement for this special occasion. This video was recorded as part of their preparation for Passion (Judicare) Sunday, and also as the celebration of their first Tenor-Bass wind trio as a family.

Latin and English lyrics at
https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/V...

Vexilla Regis Prodeunt
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c.530 –c.609 AD)

English Translation by
"The Psalter of Sarum": London, 1852.

Hungarian translation / Magyar fordítás: Királyi zászló jár elöl
by Simon Jukundián, Franciscan Monk of Csíksomlyó / Csíksomlyói ferences szerzetes 1813–1894,
as given at the beginning

Gábor Bence’s notes on the Hungarian song:
https://kantorkepzo.lutheran.hu/3egye...