Ad Mortem Festinamus

A wonderful music book just arrived for me containing 105 medieval melodies scored for alto recorder which I am now starting to learn. A lot of these songs are familiar to me but it is good to have such a compilation. I’m practicing the song Ad Mortem Festinamus which is this delightfully bouncy tune that belies the topic of its lyrics, all about us hastening unto death so we had better stop sinning. It has been recorded fairly often; here is a live performance by Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI.

The lyrics and the melody for Ad Mortem Festinamus are contained in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, a manuscript that was compiled at and still resides in the monastery at Montserrat. This manuscript contains nine other songs with musical notation. The illumination at left is from the second page of the text and music for the song.