Versa est in Luctum is a plainchant from the Responsorium de Officium Defunctorum Responsory from Matins of the Dead set by Andrea Rota in a motet for five voices (CATTB). The Versa est in luctum is an old Responsorium and even used and set by for instance by Francisco de Peñalosa (c.1470-1528), Alonso Lobo (c.1535-1617), Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), Sebastián de Vivanco (c.1550-1622), Estêvão Lopes Morago (c.1575-1630), Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla (c.1590-1664), Juan Miquel Marqués (1600-1699) and José de Torres y Martinez Bravo (1665-1738). Those settings from “Versa est in luctum” have to be considered as an Iberian inheritance. Although out of the Iberian we saw Versa est in luctum settings by the Italian Alexandro Grandi (1586-1630), Andrea Rota (1553-1597), Anselmo di Facio (1590-1610) and by the Netherlandish Gerard Dericke ( 1540-1580), who worked in UK. There are about 138 Responsoria de Officium Defunctorum known and used during centuries in the Office of the Dead. They are all well ordered. The Versa est in Luctum is Respond nr 95. To this Repond belongs Versicle nr. 43 Cutis mea. The text is from the book of Job and has become in certain European regions a Respond in the Office of the Dead. This variation of the Respond is found with some introductions in two Offices of the Dead in Lyon and in Otto of Riedenburg’s Pontifical. And from there it is spread into Europe. The text Versa est in luctum was not a direct part of the traditional Spanish liturgy but much more an extra-liturgical motet during the Obsequies of very important dignitaries of State or Church.
We think Andrea Rota must have found special inspiration in this motet, especially for funeral purposes. Rota uses here in accordance with the Iberian tradition the short text. The text of this motet used by Rota is known and are verses from the book Job XXX, 31, VII, 16 an XXX,
The text and music of this motet Versa est in luctum are penitential in feeling. Rota did not use the belonging Versicle and did not use the repetition of the last part of the Respond. He works in the short style of his Iberian colleagues. The not used text is placed by us between brackets see below. Andrea Rota starts this motet in a homophonic (CTTB) low approach from major to minor with dissonant in bar 3. In bar 7 Rota added the altus for the first time. Rota uses in this motet more flats and sharps to underline the text. Rota’s writing is more chordal and harmonically oriented. See as example “Parce mihi” from bar 23. As Italian he has to be more oriented to Rome. The result is a more understandable text. To underline that text “Parce mihi” once more Rota starts each part – except the Bassus - with a semitone. Altus, Quintus, and Tenor repeat that semitone once more in the next sentences. This motet consists out of 46 bars and starts and ends in A Phrygian.
This setting by Rota is published in Motectorum liber primus 1584 Caspari Bologna.
Text:
R. Versa est in luctum cithara mea et organum meum in vocem flentium.
Parce mihi Domine, quia nihil enim sunt dies mei.
[V. Cutis mea denigrata est super me et ossa mea aruerunt.]
[R. Parce mihi Domine, nihil enim sunt dies mei.]
Translation:
R. My harp is tuned for lamentation and my organ into the voice of those who weep.
Spare me, my Lord, since my days are nothing.
[V. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat].
[R. Spare me, [my] Lord, since my days are nothing.]