Victimae paschali laudes/organum
  • btodorovich87
    Posts: 97
    Hello all - In an effort to spice up the Easter sequence at my parish I've added some parallel harmony in order to simulate organum. Could someone more knowledgeable about early music performance practice and chant look this over for me and let me know if I should consider making any changes? Thanks in advance!
    Easter Sequence Latin with organum.pdf
    49K
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    An interesting experiment.
    The tessitura of this sequence is extraordinarily wide.
    It is likely that the high portions were sung by boys and the lower ones by men.
    This would make sense because one will have noticed that the larger portion of this sequence is a conversation betwixt observers and Mary.
    You might experiment, with or without your organum, having women (or boys and girls) sing the high portions and men sing the lower ones, coming together on the last several verses.

    Don't forget to sing the 'alleluya' at the end, following the 'amen'. Its notes are do fa mi-re re. This alleluya was historically added to a number of sequences but does not (wouldn't you know it!) appear in modern Roman Catholic books.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 964
    Very nice. I have many times added simple organum at the very end only (from ... "tu nobis victor Rex... ) to the end.
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,942
    What were your thoughts about what you did for the ending alleluia?
  • btodorovich87
    Posts: 97
    What were your thoughts about what you did for the ending alleluia?


    That's definitely a passage I'm unsure about... I wanted to resolve to the tonic/dominant in some fashion, but I think maybe it's too muddy?
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