Victoria's "Popule Meus" - Arrangement by King's Singers - Good Friday
  • princehalprincehal
    Posts: 50
    I really like this arrangement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH8t5BKI7Qg does anyone know where I can get this score?

    I'm ready to screenshot it off of YouTube if I have to, but I thought I'd ask first.

    They harmonized the first verse as a very pretty echo of the refrain. Also they plainchant the greek lines, which makes it (to my ears) far less repetitive. I'll probably use this at Good Friday. Probably won't repeat v1, and will add more verses. And probably translate the latin parts of the refrain to English since the music fits well, my parish doesn't know Latin, and the rhythm of the Latin lyrics aren't that great anyway.

    Also if anyone has opinions about arrangement/text choices, feel free to share. But I doubt this gang needs my encouragement to do that ;)

    Thanks!
    Thanked by 2JulieColl M. Jackson Osborn
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Thanks for posting the video. It's really beautiful. This score at CPDL looks very similar to what's on the video. http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/3/3d/Ws-vict-imp.pdf

    After closer inspection, I dare say it's the same score.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen princehal
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    It's interesting that the Trisagion of Victoria's setting does not retain the plainchant melody but seems to be an original one. Still, it is uncommonly wrenching - beautiful.

    Incidentally - if anyone wishes to have an English version of the plainchant Trisagion, they may find it in Palmer-Burgess - Greek vs English.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen moderntrad princehal
  • princehalprincehal
    Posts: 50
    Wow, thanks Julie!!! This is perfect. I wonder where this arrangement came from.

    "Verse 1 set as faburden..." ??? What the sam hill is a faburden?
    Were the verses composed by the user who submitted it?

    Either way, thanks again! :)

    PS One more request: any finale users out there by chance who would be willing to export a musicXML version of the Finale2000 file http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/images/d/d3/Ws-vict-imp.zip? I don't have Finale, and I'd rather not do an English translation by hand... :(
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    Here is the source file in compressed musicXML (.mxl) format.

    Oh. Good grief! The filetype (.mxl) is not supported for upload here. PM meyour email address and I'll send it to you
    Thanked by 1princehal
  • princehalprincehal
    Posts: 50
    Thanks CHGiffen, that saved my bacon.

    It went off magnificently last night. I was blown away by how easy this piece was to learn (and we've never done polyphony before). And how good it ended up sounding, even in English.

    Skeleton choir of three sopranos (only one who read music well), one alto, and myself. Well under an hour of cumulative rehearsal time. And three different parishioners/couples grabbed me afterward with some variation of "That choir up there sang beautifully," which is well above the normal rate of feedback.

    Here's the link to my edition if anyone wants to use it for next year :)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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