Filipino/Tagalog Catholic Hymnal??
  • jbmusicrose
    Posts: 40
    Hi everyone,

    I have a rather bilingual parish Engligh and Filipino and I really want to start including more Tagalog hymns, we only have a couple I think but does anyone have any resources to more? Is there a hymnal type book at all?
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Hi, @jbmusicrose,

    I am a Filipino, and am part of a schola that sings for a regular TLM in Metro Manila. There's not much decent Tagalog hymns around. For the greater part of Filipino choral repertoire, the language is Spanish. I am currently collating most of these pieces into one corpus for my choir.

    There are two traditional Tagalog Catholic hymns around that I know of. Both of them are for Lent, "Poóng Dios ng awà at habág" and "Patawad, O Poón ko." The first one has the melody of Pergolesi's "Au sang qu'un Dieu" (Eng: God of mercy and compassion), and the second has the melody of "Perdón, O Dios mío," a Spanish votive song also prevalent in the Philippines.

    There are other Tagalog pieces out there but I have not yet secured a copy of both text and music. Most of those in my possession are in Spanish. For example, the Filipino hymn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, "No más amor que el tuyo," which has already been made available elsewhere online.

    I invite you to check this translation of mine for a popular Filipino Christmas carol. The translation was taken from the original lyrics, though, and not from the Tagalog one. http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/7872/free-carol-rather-secular#Item_1

    I hope this helped.
    Thanked by 2jbmusicrose eft94530
  • jbmusicrose
    Posts: 40
    Thank you aldrich, this did help! I have located a few 'hymnals' through WorldCat but I think they might be collections with a few hymns thrown in. When I receive them, would it be possible to post/email you the list of song titles to see what would be appropriate for Catholic liturgies and their season?
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    It would be my pleasure.

    By the way, if this is not intrusion, can you tell me for what particular purpose or objective you are undertaking this endeavour?
  • jbmusicrose
    Posts: 40
    Thank you for your support on this. We have a rather large Filipino community that has been overshadowed by the Spanish community. Since the Hispanics do not seem the least bit interested in holding choir rehearsal or being a part of the program so to speak, I am going to take Bilingual liturgies in another direction :) I have plenty of Filipino women who are already in my choir and think this would be a nice surprise and very well appreciated
  • WGS
    Posts: 300
    Times may have changed, but forty plus years ago, we had a choir of twelve or so men, and half were Filipino. I asked about Tagalog or even Spanish hymns that they might be familiar with. Blank. They were only familiar with English hymns. It seems that Tagalog has a lot of dialects. One singer asserted that he could not even converse with his Filipina wife in Tagalog. Although there was an appreciation for Latin, English was the "lingua Franca".
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    There are over a hundred languages in the Philippines, Tagalog being one of them. I am a proud speaker of at least four of these languages, not counting Spanish and English. I can't blame those men. If they grew up in the city, they probably were drowned in not-so-good Jesuit music. Oh, I don't want to be a grinch, but they sort of have a monopoly of our church music landscape.

    There are two hymns, both in Spanish, for the Blessed Sacrament that have been transmitted to me by an elderly friend (elderly means septuagenarian, and I'm not even thirty yet). Most of our traditional Marian hymns were written (and still zealously sung) in Spanish. Every region has its own repertoire. Every church used to have its own chant books (and mind you, they are far from being Roman, in the sense that they are closer to the Mozarabic register).

    Precaution, though. Some Filipinos, both men and women, have an unadmitted predilection for belting, even when in choir. You might as well caution them against it.
  • Steve QSteve Q
    Posts: 121
    I spent 3 years in the Philippines in the early 1990's and sang with a music ministry group at the school where I was teaching. They sang a couple of different mass settings in Tagalog which seemed to be well known at the time. I believe this is the Angus Dei ("Cordero Ng Diyos") that we sang, for example. Maybe your Filipino singers would like to do a Tagalog mass.

    Unfortunately, I am not sure how to get hold of the sheet music. Part of our problem was that most of the music we did had to be learned by rote because books were either unavailable or unaffordable. Maybe aldrich can help with that?

    I think there are some contemporary Filipino composers who are published, like Fr. Ricky Manalo and Fr. Manoling Francisco. Most of their music is in English, but they probably have some in Tagalog also. Your Filipino singers might appreciate Filipino songs written in English as well.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    One of my coworkers in Digos City says:

    We have English and Cebuano (our local dialect) masses. There were no Tagalog masses since 2010. :-)
  • rob
    Posts: 148
    How refreshing, of late, to see a posting seeking to advance the cause of Catholic music which does not involve -- directly, at least -- issues with the Church in the U.S.

    And, Aldrich, I hope you will share more of your experiences serving a TLM community in Manila, and, more generally, of the people towards tradional liturgical music.

    Is there, for example, a widely available Tagalog edition of the propers?
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Hi, all,

    @Steve Q, the Agnus Dei you attached is one of the few pieces (the only one I know) that use the official Tagalog text. Most Sunday fare gives us "mundo" instead of "sanlibutan."

    @The Catholic Choirbook, I must point out first that Cebuano is a language by itself and not a dialect (sorry, pedant here). In my home parish (in the Diocese of Maasin), Mass in English was introduced in 2012. To date, no Tagalog Mass (which uses the Apostle's Creed as opposed to the Nicene Creed recited in Masses in Cebuano) has yet been celebrated in said home parish in the Visayas.

    @rob, if you mean propers as the text, yes there are. Set to music, rare and probably none. If there is one full set of propers existing set to music, I have not yet gotten wind of it. Though I must note that the Tagalog translation of the propers are metered in such a way that it can be sung in one of the many tones of the "pasyon" (and believe me, each church, where the custom has steadfastly persisted, has at least 5 or 10 tones). This is not the Passion narrative per se, sung during Holy Week. This is a particular devotion, wherein narratives of the life of Christ (including his Passion, that is), are sung for days on end until the whole booklet is finished. Tones exist for each speaker, from Mary to Christ, from each of the Apostles to Pilate, and so on.

    As for the TLM, we sing from time to time our traditional Spanish hymns, where Latin is not required (i.e., procession and recession of the priest, and during processions). This Corpus Christi procession, our priest instructed us to sing a Spanish hymn to the Blessed Sacrament composed and written by Filipino priests in 1932 for the Eucharistic Congress.
  • Barb
    Posts: 1
    While vacationing at the Grand Canyon this past Mothers' Day (5/12/13), the small Filipino choir ended the Mass with one of their hymns that had the word FAITH in it. I asked the title of it, but didn't have a pen, so I didn't write it down and I don't remember it now. The lyrics seemed perfect for a funeral Mass. If anyone knows the hymn I am referring to, could you please post the title and perhaps where I could find the music and lyrics. Thanks!
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    This is a quote from the college student herself, "We have English and Cebuano (our local dialect) masses.", rather than my determination that it is a dialect or language. As an "A" student, I'm sure that she will be apologetic for misstating this.

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