Sicut Cervus: A Song History
Sicut cervus is a motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the Italian Renaissance composer who was born about 1525 in Palestrina, near Rome, and died in Rome in 1594.[1] Written for four voices, it sets in Latin the opening of Psalm 42 (Psalm 41 in the Vulgate's numbering), and its second part begins Sitivit anima mea.[2][3] Hyperion's catalog gives the text as the psalm's first three verses.[3]
Thomas Rowlandson, A Group of Stags Drinking, etching, 1784–88. Chosen for the psalm's image of a deer longing for water; it has no connection to the motet.
The sources consulted here differ on when the motet first appeared in print: Hyperion lists it in Palestrina's second book of motets (Motectorum liber secundus) of 1581,[3] the Choral Public Domain Library dates that same book to 1587,[2] and IMSLP gives a first publication of 1604, in Motecta festorum, Liber 2, ten years after the composer's death.[4][1] Apart from the motet, the psalm itself had a place in the Holy Saturday liturgy, where it was appointed as the first part of the Tract at the blessing of the font.[3]
Collegium Records' notes rank it among Palestrina's best-known motets, reprinted and gathered into anthologies again and again from the 1800s onward, and describe it as "a model of Renaissance imitative polyphony."[3] Judy House includes it in Classic Hymns In Multiple Parts, her collection of twenty hymns arranged for dulcimer ensembles in three to five parts, with dulcimer parts in DAD tuning and baritone parts in ADA.[5]
Sources
- Britannica: "Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina".
- Choral Public Domain Library: "Sicut cervus (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina)".
- Hyperion Records: "Sicut cervus desiderat".
- IMSLP: "Sicut cervus, PdPWV Mot183 (Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da)".
- Judy House: "Classic Hymns In Multiple Parts".
- Image: Thomas Rowlandson, A Group of Stags Drinking, etching, 1784–88. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.