Qui manducat carnem meam et bibit sanguinem meam, in me manet et ego in meo dicit Dominus.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him, says the Lord.
John 6:57
GT: pg 383
GN: pg 369
Perhaps one of the most famous communion antiphons in the repertory, Qui manducat ends the three-week lectionary cycle of John’s Bread of Life Discourse. Personally, this chant always whisks me back to my undergraduate years where we would sing this chant throughout the liturgical year. To this day, I can still hear our equalistic interpretation, enraptured by a repertoire I had never heard before college. Although my interpretation now eschews the tied repeated notes and the strict rhythmic structure of the Solesmes method, I owe much of my formation – and love of this repertoire – to those years.
Although these reconstruction-recordings normally rely on St. Gall neumes, I will occasionally reference neumes from Laon 239, a 9th-century gradual from Metz, France. Laon 239 contains unique adiastemetic neumes insofar as the vertical placement of the neumes reflects an inexact melodic contour. This is unlike the St. Gall family, where this type of placement is only found over some melismas. Thus, Laon 239 sometimes can provide more insight than St. Gall. In this rendition, I relied on Laon 239 to melodically alter the word dicit. Although this melodic reconstruction happens to be the one provided by Anton Stingl and the editors of the Graduale Novum, I also relied on the indications given in Laon 239 to reach the same conclusion.
On the word dicit, I replaced TE in the Vatican edition with LA. E 121 gives an e between the virga of meo and the virga of dicit, indicating that the notes ought to be the same melodic pitch. However, the visual placement of the uncini in Laon 239 indicate that the one on dicit ought to be higher than the one on meo. The modal characteristics and textual importance also underscore this adaptation. Given that the reciting tone of mode VI is LA and TE melodically pulls down to LA, this half-step relationship heightens the tension on the word dicit. The neumes in St. Gall and Laon on dicit also give an emphatic virga followed by a porrectus, so the first note of that grouping ought to receive precedence. The controversial words that precede dicit demand an ultimate authority to audaciously claim that eating His flesh and blood is integral to a covenantal relationship with Him. By drawing out this tension, dicit becomes the apex of the entire chant; the singer and listener are drawn into the question – who? Who is the one saying such amazing things? The standard cadential torculus formula over Dominus brings melodic relief and resolves the question: it is the Lord of Heaven and Earth who has said such marvelous things.
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