'Crux Fidelis' attributed to King John IV of Portugal

"The Crucifixion" by Eugene Delacroix

    King John IV of Portugal can claim many distinctions: his acclamation as King in 1640 marked the beginning of the conflict that eventually freed Portugal from the domination of the Spanish Habsburgs; during his reign the Portuguese Empire reached its greatest extent; he was a great promoter of culture, amassing a great library, lavishly patronizing the arts and even, we are told, authoring his own musical compositions.  

    Whatever his merits as a composer, however, he seems not to be the real author of the best-known piece attributed to him.  The beautiful setting for the Crux Fidelis performed in the clip below (much like the Ave Maria commonly attributed to the 16th century composer Giulio Caccini, but which was probably a product of the twentieth century) seems to have been composed by someone less illustrious and more recent: “no known manuscript of the work exists, and it was first published only in 1869, in France. On stylistic grounds, it is generally recognized that the work was written in the 19th century“ (see here).

    Fortunately, the Pseudo-John was himself (or herself?) a gifted composer.  “King John’s” Crux Fidelis, whatever its provenance, has earned its place as a favorite Lenten hymn.

 The words of the hymn, by the way, are much older than the music.  They are a part of a larger work, Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis by St. Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century Bishop of Poitiers (this hymn also provided the inspiration for St. Thomas Aquinas’s Pange Lingua).

Crux fidelis, inter omnes

arbor una nobilis:

nulla silva talem profert,

fronde, flore, germine.

Dulce lignum, dulces clavos,

dulce pondus sustinet.

Faithful cross, above all other,

One and only noble tree:

None in foliage, none in blossom,

None in fruit thy peer may be.

Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,

Sweetest weight is hung on thee!