Like my previous blogpost, this one will be short and focus on a piece of music for the Advent season. In this post, I present to you the Norwegian translation of the Ambrosian hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium, "come, redeemer of the people", Folkefrelsar til oss kom.. The authorship of this hymn has been attributed to Bishop Ambrose of Milan (d.397). We do know that Ambrose did write a number of hymns, but we also know that many hymns attributed to him and labelled with the term "Ambrosian chant" - most famously Te Lucis Ante Terminum - were composed at a later date.
The present rendition is from a concert on the feast of St. Lucia in Aker church near Oslo, given by Kvindelige Studenters Sangforening (The Singer Union of Female Students) in 2009. The present arrangement deviates somewhat from the more typical version sung in church by added elaborations which draw on Norwegian folk music for its sound. The text is the translation into Nynorsk by Bernt Støylen in 1906, and it is included in the Norwegian hymnal and the second hymn.
For an English translation of the Latin hymn, see here.
For a blogpost by Clerk of Oxford on various English translations, see here.
For further blogposts concerning Ambrose:
Ambrose and the cult of SS Gervasius and Protasius
Ambrose and the cult of SS Nazarius and Celsus
A different rendition of Folkefrelsar til oss kom
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