O admirabile commercium, antiphon in mode 6 (Liber Usualis No. 442)

• Composer: Gregorian Chant
• Period: Medieval (1-1449)

Review

The feast celebrating Christ's circumcision is closely linked to the most holy day of Christmas, which celebrates His coming into the world. On Christmas, the Christian churches around the world commemorate the moment when God took on human flesh and came into the world to walk with men and women. The Feast of the Circumcision is celebrated on the eighth day after Christmas (January 1), and commemorates the ritual this Jewish child underwent in the flesh, which in turn represented his entry into the community of faith, and his being officially given the name of Jesus. Both Christmas and the Circumcision deal with the physical body of the Christ child, and the second occurs one week after Christmas, a period known as an "octave," which often in the Catholic liturgy connects with the first feast anyway. When the Roman Catholic church moved away from celebrating the feast of the Circumcision in the 1960s, some pieces of music composed for the feast, including O admirabile commercium, became more associated with Christmas day.

The Latin text of O admirabile commercium celebrates the "wondrous interchange" of the incarnation, when the very "creator of the human race" is humbled to be born of a virgin and to take on the flesh of a human body. The second half of the interchange deals with the salvation attributed to this God in human form. His taking on of our flesh makes it possible for us to reach a divine state. The chant to this text occupies an honored place in the liturgy for the feast of the Circumcision, acting as antiphon (framing music) to the first Psalm of Vespers during that feast. It thus is one of the first pieces sung on the evening before the holy day, and also helps conclude the feast on the following evening. Its melody is in the somewhat more restrained sixth mode, which travels both above and below the final pitch of F. A relatively late date of composition is indicated by its uncanny similarity to a number of other antiphons within the medieval Gregorian chant repertory. Not only does its melody closely resemble that of several other texts, it contains some internal repetitions. The simplicity of the melody, however, does not detract from the miracle presented in the text: it can allow more declamatory singing and more direct presentation of that text. ~ Timothy Dickey, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Gregorian Christmas: Chants and Motets	1993
Gregorian High Days (Box Set)
Gregorian High Days: Advent and Christmas
Gregorianische gesänge	1999
The Announcement of Christmas	2007
The Christ Story-Gregorian Chants	1995

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