Singing the Pange Lingua
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    One benefit to striving for perfection rather than joining the rat race to sing more and more new music is simply being able to have time to think and evaluate what has gone on before and what it can become when it is sung once again.

    Thinking ahead to Maundy Thursday and something that Dr. Mahrt has said about chant melodies - that they begin low, rise and end low...will you sing:

    Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory,
    of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
    of the Blood, all price exceeding,
    shed by our Immortal King,
    destined, for the world's redemption,
    from a noble Womb to spring.

    or

    Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory, of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
    of the Blood, all price exceeding, shed by our Immortal King,
    destined, for the world's redemption, from a noble Womb to spring.

    Singing it as three lines emphasizes the rise and fall...and gets away from the metric "we begin, we stop; we begin, we stop. we..." or not?

    Singing it as three lines also tends to improve the singing of the choir as they parcel out the air more judiciously, pulling taffy rather than breaking pasta. And the tempo of the flow....the words are hardly a dirge, rather this is music and text in the same sense as the Gloria.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Ummm, who wouldn't sing it as three lines?
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    I've always heard it sung as three lines as well.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Three lines, with a pseudo-mediant pause, except the mediant pause is replaced with an elongation.

    Sing my tongue the saviors glo-reeeeeof his flesh the mystery sing.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Here's the Mode I version, together with my SATB setting.
    Giffen-Pange lingua.pdf
    52K
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Youtube....first one at the top of the list:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmW5pD9Qdvc
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Isn't the dotted punctum enough pause as it is?
  • Musicteacher56
    Posts: 621
    It seems to me that three lines gives more way to the phrasing and the rise and fall of the chant. Anything less than that tears the phrases apart and becomes too sing-songy. As long as the dotted punctum is used as a pause, and not as a fermata (yes, I've heard it sung that way), the phrasing doesn't suffer.
    Thanked by 1noel jones, aago
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Isn't the dotted punctum enough pause as it is?

    Certainly.

    "How long should I hold a dotted punctum?"
    "Precisely the correct length of time."
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Dots are best understood as editorial suggestions which are not always apt. They certainly have a relatively recent pedigree. A choirmaster's interpretation is often as legitimate as an editor's.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
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