Papageno and his amazing metrical tune

[gwyn]

Listening to Mozart's Magic Flute on Saturday last, as Papgino the bird catcher sang his famous little number, I couldn't help but sing along with the words of "O bread of Heaven, beneath this veil". Tune substitutions pop up everywhere, aren't they?

I know we did this topic to death a year or so back but they refuse to go away.

[docmattc]

I've just looked at the old 'one song to the tune of another' thread and to my surprise my favourites weren't in.
'There is a green hill' fits 'House of the rising sun'
and 'Immortal invisible' drops right into the tune of the wombling song (stop before you get to the Uncle Bulgaria bit! Suggested we did this last time it came up, but the choir (spoil sports!) were having none of it!

Sweet sacrament divine blends seamlessly into Yellow Submarine, so much so I've accidentally slipped from one to the other in Mass!

Sweet Sacrament divine, lived a man who sailed to sea...

[gwyn]

The other one that gets me without fail every year is the Sequence for Pentecost (Holy Spirit, Lord of Light) that drops snuggly into the "Ta-ran-ta-ra" polceman's song from the Pirates of Penzance.

It does the same with the Latin version too - - - of 'Holy Spirit, Lord of Light' that is, not 'When the Foeman bears his steel'. Dunnow if that ever got translated into Latin.

Don't you dare ! ! !

[contrabordun]

yes, but Sulllivan was a church musician too - these should probably be disqualified on the suspicion of being more than mere coincidence...

(the e minor fugue (BWV533) is definitely the source for Pooh Bah's song I am so proud)

[dmu3tem]

In the Crown of Jesus Music hymnal (c.1863) this is set to the text 'I am a faithful Catholic'. This is a classic example of Hemy's religious educational philosophy in action; since here he was primarily thinking of children. Hemy believed that the tune should be intertwined in the mind with the text, and the text with the hymn - the one reinforcing the other. Here Hemy used a catchy tune to indoctrinate Catholic children that they should only go to Catholic schools, Catholic churches and receive only Catholic doctrine. In other words this tune was hijacked to serve the cause of creating an exclusive 'ghetto Church' mentality - a very common attitude at that time.

Thomas Muir