Great musical forms dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. Outline of the issues
Great musical forms dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. Outline of the issues

Summary/Abstract: This article gives an overview of the great musical forms dedicated to St Martin of Tours. These are primarily liturgical compositions, connected with the reverence for the person of the saint which has been formed in the Church over the centuries. This group includes single-voice parts of the proprium Missae (Alleluia verses, sequences), multi-voice liturgical motets of the medieval period (Brassart, Roullet, Fresneau), as well as extra-liturgical works (de Grudencz, de Machaut). These compositions show the process of transformation of the image of St Martin, which was taking place at the time and was extremely important in terms of liturgical worship and popular piety: from a follower, bishop and monk, to a noble knight and soldier of Christ (miles Christi). Evidence of liturgical reverence towards St Martin can be found in the two masses (ordinarium Missae) of the medieval period (d’Amaerval, Obrecht), the motets of the Renaissance and Baroque (di Lasso, Palestrina, de Monte, Handl, Marenzio, Anerio, Mielczewski), the masses of the Romanticism (Stahl, Kircher, Bottazzo) and the 20th and 21st centuries (Miškinis, Pitzl, Nowak, Halter), as well as oratorio and cantata works (Kocsár, Schlenker) and hymns (Augustinas, Monks, Łukaszewski). The theological reflection presented in this article falls within in the field of aspectual hagiology, i.e. one that brings together specialists from various disciplines on a common research subject, i.e. ‘saints, holiness’, aiming at innovation.

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