De Brevitate Vitae
Encyclopedia
- "De Brevitate Vitae" and "Gaudeamus" redirect here. For the work by Seneca the Younger, see De Brevitate Vitae (Seneca)De Brevitate Vitae (Seneca)De Brevitate Vitae is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his friend Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits...
. For the Gaudeamus Foundation and Prizes, see Gaudeamus FoundationGaudeamus FoundationThe Gaudeamus Foundation and Contemporary Music Center is a renowned center for contemporary music. The Gaudeamus Foundation organizes and promotes contemporary musical activities and concerts both in the Netherlands and abroad...
. For the rodentRodentRodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
genusGenusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
, see Gaudeamus (rodent).
Commercium song
Commercium songs are traditional academic songs that are sung during academic feasts: commerciums and tablerounds.Some very old commercium songs are in Latin, like Meum est propositum or Gaudeamus igitur....
in many European countries, mainly sung or performed at university graduation
Graduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
ceremonies. Despite its use as a formal graduation hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
, it is a jocular, light-hearted composition that pokes fun at university life. The song dates to the early 18th century, based on a Latin manuscript from 1287. It is in the tradition of carpe diem
Carpe diem
Carpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace that has become an aphorism. It is popularly translated as "seize the day"...
("seize the day") with its exhortations to enjoy life.
It was known as a beer-drinking song in many ancient universities and is the official song of many schools, colleges, universities, institutions, and student societies.
Content
The lyrics reflect an endorsement of the bacchanaliaBacchanalia
The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Greco-Roman god Bacchus , the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.-History:...
n mayhem of student life while simultaneously retaining the grim knowledge that one day we will all die. The song contains humorous and ironic references to sex and death, and many versions have appeared following efforts to bowdlerise this song for performance in public ceremonies. In private, students will typically sing ribald
Ribaldry
Ribaldry is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to gross indecency. It is also referred to as "bawdiness", "gaminess" or "bawdry"....
words.
The song is sometimes known by its opening words, "Gaudeamus igitur" or simply "Gaudeamus". In the UK, it is sometimes affectionately known as "The Gaudie
Gaudy
Gaudy or gaudie is a term used to reflect student life in a number of the ancient universities in the United Kingdom...
". The centuries of use have given rise to numerous slightly different versions.
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
quoted the hymn in the final section of his Academic Festival Overture
Academic Festival Overture
Academic Festival Overture , Op. 80, by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures — the other being the Tragic Overture, Op. 81, written to balance it as its pair...
. Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
used it in the operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
The Student Prince
The Student Prince
The Student Prince is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Alt Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works...
, which is set at the University of Heidelberg. The hymn is also quoted, along with other student songs, in the overture of Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé
Franz von Suppé or Francesco Suppé Demelli was an Austrian composer of light operas who was born in what is now Croatia during the time his father was working in this outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...
's 1863 operetta Flotte Burschen (the action being once again set at the University of Heidelberg).
Lyrics
Below is an 18th-century version of the song (C.W. Kindleben, 1781) with a translation to English. This version uses the convention that consonantal i and u in the Latin are written as j and v, respectively. The word antiburschius is not Latin but came to refer to the 19th-century politically active German student fraternitiesBurschenschaft
German Burschenschaften are a special type of Studentenverbindungen . Burschenschaften were founded in the 19th century as associations of university students inspired by liberal and nationalistic ideas.-History:-Beginnings 1815–c...
.
When sung, the first two lines and the last line of each stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
are repeated; for instance:
- Gaudeamus igitur.
- Iuvenes dum sumus.
- Gaudeamus igitur.
- Iuvenes dum sumus.
- Post iucundam iuventutem.
- Post molestam senectutem.
- Nos habebit humus —
- Nos habebit humus.
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Performances
The song is often performed as the opening piece of concerts by the Yale Glee ClubYale Glee Club
The Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club,...
.
A version of this song is sung at the end of the University of Fribourg
University of Fribourg
The University of Fribourg is a university in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.The roots of the University can be traced back to 1582, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg. In 1763, an Academy of law was founded by the state of Frobourg...
's Dies academicus ceremonies on the 15th of November (the feast of St. Albert the Great).
This song is sung in addition to the School Song at all assemblies at the prominent Fort Street High School
Fort Street High School
Fort Street High School is a co-educational, academically selective, public high school currently located at Petersham, an inner western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
in Sydney, Australia.
A performance of the first, most characteristic strophe was recorded in mid-20th century by the Italian-American tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....
, and is still available under the title "Gaudeamus Igitur". Lanza recorded a version of "The Student Prince" (see above).
An excerpt of the song was performed by cast members of the television series The West Wing during the episode entitled "Debate Camp".
The song is sung in Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
' Ball of Fire
Ball of Fire
Ball of Fire is a 1941 American romantic comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The RKO Pictures film is about a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge...
by a number of academics at a party where they are celebrating the upcoming nuptials of a professor played by Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
.
It was also performed as the musical theme of the classic 1951 Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...
's film People Will Talk
People Will Talk
People Will Talk is a romantic comedy/drama directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck from a screenplay by Mankiewicz, based on the German play by Curt Goetz, which had been made into a movie in Germany...
, delightfully "conducted" by Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
. This movie is a remake of the German Frauenarzt Dr. Praetorius, in which actor/director Curt Goetz
Curt Goetz
Curt Goetz , born Kurt Walter Götz, was a Swiss-German writer, actor and film director. Curt Goetz was regarded as one of the most brilliant comedy writers of his time in the German-speaking world. Together with his wife Valérie von Martens he acted in his own plays and also filmed them...
performs that scene with the same music in the movie based on his own play and screenplay.
A fairly modern vocal version is sung during graduation ceremonies in the movie Lord Love a Duck
Lord Love a Duck
Lord Love a Duck is a 1966 black comedy starring Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld. The film was a satire of popular culture at the time, its targets ranging from progressive education to Beach Party films...
.
The International University Sports Federation
International University Sports Federation
The Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire , based in Brussels, Belgium is responsible for the organisation and governance of worldwide competitions for student-athletes between the ages of 17 and 28...
(FISU) adopted the song as its anthem to be played during the medal-awards ceremonies and the opening ceremonies of the Universiade
Universiade
The Universiade is an International multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation . The name is a combination of the words "University" and "olympiad"...
s.
The Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
in Kraków has the song sung as its anthem at official ceremonies, including especially the successive inaugurations of academic years (in 2011 for the 648th time).
This song was referenced in satirist Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
's song "Bright College Days" in 1959 on the album An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer
An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer
An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer is an album recorded by Tom Lehrer, the well-known satirist and Harvard lecturer. The recording was made on March 20-21, 1959 in Sanders Theater at Harvard.-Track listing:#"Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" – 2:38...
in the line "Turn on the spigot, pour the beer and swig it, and gaudeamus igit-ur."
In LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
' classic point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a point-and-click adventure game by LucasArts originally released in 1992. Almost a year later, it was reissued on CD-ROM as an enhanced "talkie" edition with full voice acting and digitized sound effects...
, the large Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
thug Arnold sings the first line of this song before being killed by a boulder released by Indiana Jones.
The first few bars of the song are used in the PopCap game BookWorm at level up or game over.
Peter Alexander sang this song in a medley in the 1963 film Der Musterknabe
Der Musterknabe
Der Musterknabe is a 1963 Austrian comedy film directed by Werner Jacobs and starring Peter Alexander, Cornelia Froboess and Gunther Philipp...
.
In Belgian studentclubs (more specifically those from Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
and Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
) the 1st, 3rd, and 7th stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
s are sung when former members of the presidium
Presidium
The presidium or praesidium is the name for the heading organ of various legislative and organizational bodies.-Historical usage:...
enter the cantus
Cantus
A cantus , is an activity organised by Belgian, Dutch, French, Baltic and Afrikaans student organisations and fraternities. A cantus mainly involves singing traditional songs and drinking beer. It is governed by strict traditional rules...
room.
The melody is woven through the soundtrack of Harold Lloyd's silent film "The Freshman" (1925).
In Finland the song is traditionally sung by the new graduates during the high school graduation ceremony.
In the middle section of the Alan Sherman song "Dropouts March", An Alma Mater Chorus sings the following humorous line set to that melodic piece:
"Ignoramus There you are/ Sitting in your hopped-up car/ And your brains ain't up to par/ And your ears stick out too far". (Source: "Dropouts March" from the Alan Sherman album "Allan in Wonderland" from 1964.)
See also
- Ars longa, vita brevisArs longa, vita brevisArs longa, vita brevis are the first two lines of a Latin translation of an aphorism by Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. The words are commonly translated in English as art is long, life is short. The full text in Latin is:...
- AnthemAnthemThe term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...