Talk:Vesperae solennes de confessore

Confessores
Not all saints are confessors, the words are not synonymous, and all vesper services are about something or someone. The liturgical format that Mozart chose to put to music suggests a vesper service for a SAINT. Whoever edits this article needs to know SOMETHING about LITURGICAL MUSIC of the Tridentine rites.

208.87.248.162 (talk) 02:28, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I was about to say the same thing. There are a series of office chants (including those for the office of Vespers) at the end, usually, of the breviary's listings of daily office chants, which are set for any saint, any martyr, and any confessor. These are to be used with the propers for that particular saint, martyr, or confessor on their festal day....they "fill in," if you will, the elements that draw attention to an individual's exemplary virtues and narrate the story of their faithful life--including the form of their martyrdom--that are particular, or proper, instructive texts for their feast day's celebration.

So the work in question here is among those appropriate for any saint of the rank of confessor (one who was tortured, usually, and survived, and was thus considered to have been tested and worthy to receive the confessions of others who had not experienced such a challenge to their faith). These actually precede even the Council of Trent--the 13th c. books I work on have the sections I described as well, and the practice goes back further than that. The naming of individuals who had survived persecution as confessors began by the 3rd c. CE, with the Roman persecutions by emperors like Diocletian.

Vesper services are the "eve of" services (like Christmas Eve) and may have a combination of "second Vespers" (for the ending of the saint's day that has just been celebrated) and "first Vespers" for the next day's saint, if there are two that follow directly on each other. For example, in Christmas week, St. Stephen's protomartyrdom is recognized on Dec. 26th, so there are chants for the end of Christmas Day and for the beginning of St. Stephen's Day that follow on each other (one text, <>, based on Augustine's and Gregory of Nyssa's writings, points up the irony of a celebration of the birth of Christ and the death of Stephen occurring so closely together). There might be only one set of saint's chants for the saint of the day, or the one upcoming, also; the use of a chant (or hymn like this one) for a confessor would be among those appropriate to either their first or second Vespers.

(NB: I would enter this or some form of it in the article's actual text, but my researched replies keep being reversed by individuals who think they "own" an article and disagree with some aspect of them (or, more often, just don't understand them), so I've stopped doing that. If this helps someone else with an input to the actual entry, that's fine, too.) (Olim dellaroux)209.6.47.220 (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2018 (UTC)209.6.47.220 (talk) 16:39, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Psalm numbering
Mozart was a Catholic. Vespers is a Catholic service. Why are the psalms numbered in a Protestant fashion? The Dixit Dominus is Ps 109, not 110. Safebreaker (talk) 08:23, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

The use of Protestant numbering for Scriptural passages is a commonplace among Western printers at present. It is correct that Mozart was a Catholic, and his original Mss may clarify what citations he actually used (if any; he might have just known what he was writing about, and so didn't feel the need to cite them; if others added the notations later, the later citation use might also have crept in then.) Any recent study of Mozart's original manuscripts would clarify this, I don't have access to those at the moment.

(NB: I would enter this or some form of it in the article's actual text, but my researched replies keep being reversed by individuals who think they "own" an article and disagree with some aspect of them (or, more often, just don't understand them), so I've stopped doing that. If this helps someone else with an input to the actual entry, that's fine, too.) (Olim dellaroux)209.6.47.220 (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Because Wikipedia has the psalms numbered as in the original Hebrew. The first thing you see when looking at Psalm 100 is that for the Vulgate it is Psalm 99. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If you think that's not enough, consider a footnote. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2018 (UTC)