Tri-Lingual Gloria
  • musings
    Posts: 23
    In my work with Hispanic parishes/Masses, I have yet to encounter a through composed Gloria. They are all strophic and in either a Mariachi or Ranchero style.

    I live and work in an area where there are descendants who lived here before the Gadsden Purchase and the parish I work in is quite sensitive to not showing a great preference towards Spanish or English.

    In view of all the buzz about singing chant and the use of Latin, I decided to combine these elements for the Gloria this year for our Triduum which is bi-lingual and comprised a couple of groups. I thought it was the best way to introduce simple chant to my Spanish groups, get a through composed Gloria, sing a capella, and not only introduce Latin, but hopefully make the extension that Latin is our common mother tongue.

    I set the men and women separately and antiphonally so that the two different groups would have to work together and the men could get a sense of themselves singing.

    Well, see how it goes.
  • musings
    Posts: 23
    I will have to attempt this again at another time. The system doesn't want to accept it and I will take time to figure it out later.

    :-(
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    will post and link
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Here it is
    Microsoft Word - Gloria Tri lingual 2011.pdf
    69K
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    like it.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Very useful, what a great idea!
  • musings
    Posts: 23
    Thanks, everyone. ;-)
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    A quote from the cartoon called Calvin and Hobbes: "A good compromise leaves everybody unhappy...."

    :-D

    ;-)
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Benedict Gal and I have collaborated on this, which....not coincidentally, also restores the 9 repetition Kyrie.
    CHANTLORDTRI1.pdf
    30K
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    I can laugh at the quote from Calvin & Hobbes...but have to say, only the evil people would be unhappy!
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    FNJ, a remark: "tenpiedad" is not a word. "Ten" is the imperative, and "piedad" is the noun. And I'm at a loss to see why you would want "ten" to fall where it does, rather than on the note equivalent to where "have" falls in the English (e.g., the G in the first Kyrie). Those notes G-A-B-B ought to be "ten pi-e-dad" (and correspondingly elsewhere). I can barely sing it the way it's written, with "ten" on that off note.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    It's not unusual for "pie-dad" to be treated as two syllables, but it's hard to use the same melody, given the different stresses. ("pie-" is the weak syllable, whereas "mer-" is accented.)

    Would it work to have the line descend: Se(GA)nor(BBB) ten(B) pie-(AG)dad(G) ?
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    A response...(by the way, the FNJ always gives me pause, having served in the military during, but not in, Vietnam...but then I laugh, for that may be why some people use it!)

    The "-" was an artifact of the Finale program, a problem occurs, and requires erasing the syllable that preceeds it, backing up to the syllable prior to it...or the earliest one prior that is not hyphenated...and then retyping, being very careful to hit RETURN after the offending syllable AND stopping to make sure that this has actually solved the problem.

    I spent a long, lovely afternoon (there was good food) with a poet friend who also translates, professionally, from German and Spanish. I've worked in Germany and Italy in the past, setting translations to musical scores for musicals and opera, including The Bear by Sir William Walton for its Italian premiere, and did rehearsals under Sir WIlliam's guidance. We discussed, my friend and I, why Italian and German are so easy to set to music while Spanish is an....absolute BEAR!

    The local practices of pronunciation and slurring of words varies....and Spanish poetry appears to be not as structured as English and German.

    Anyhow, I defer all my settings of Spanish to some friends who speak it and are part of the community, for example, my Beginner's book to reading Gregorian Chant Notation, was translated in to Spanish and then reviewed by a pair, one from Mexico and one from Peru before release. Even so, I am sure that a person writing it from scratch in Spanish would do a better job.

    In this case, I submitted the text to a bilingual resident of Texas who serves a parish. I proposed TEN PIE - DAD, with PIE pronounced as LEI rather than LE I son in Greek - the PIE stretched over two notes. However, in the area in which this parish lies, they say Ten Pie Dad, not TEN PI E DAD, and the rhythm of speech there called for it to be over the last three notes.


    .
  • Pancho
    Posts: 27
    Hello, this is my first post, but I've been lurking here for a long time. I hope you don't mind me adding my two cents.

    In defense of FNJ, I would write "piedad" as two syllables. That's how it's pronounced in Spanish, or at least in Mexican Spanish. For similar reasons, the "cielito" in "Cielito Lindo" is sung as 3 syllables, "cie-li-to".

    Here's a short article on diphthongs in Spanish:
    http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/detecting-diphthongs-in-spanish.html
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Pancho, welcome!

    Great link...nice to see the bv which I have heard but not understood till now!
  • Pancho
    Posts: 27
    Thanks for the welcome!

    I've been trying to teach myself to chant, bit by bit, and one thing that surprised me was the shift in accent or syllable that sometimes happens in a word from it in Spanish to it's parent in Latin (or to another word in Greek) and how it can affect singing (or in my case, attempting to sing).
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