Latin texts set to music
  • SeanL
    Posts: 2
    Which Latin texts set to music are most performed by contemporary choirs? I am thinking mainly of works such as Bach's Mass in B Minor, Mozart's various Masses and the various Requiems and Stabat Maters.
  • SeanL
    Posts: 2
    Is anyone aware of a survey of such music in the United States. Here in the UK, a group called Voice Now carried out a survey of British choirs which included questions on the musical genres they sang although it did not go into great detail on the above question.
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,295
    This is not a scientific or data-backed answer, but I believe that settings of the Ave Maria, texts of the Ordinary, and the texts of the Requiem will be far and away the most commonly sung Latin texts. There are a lot of other common ones like Panis Angelicus, Rorate Caeli, Regina Caeli, Salve Regina, etc. but I think the three I mentioned at the beginning will be the most common.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    In England, and its neighbours, I suspect that the modern lollipops heard on radio stations like Classic FM are the most widely performed. Mostly fairly short pieces, or bits of requiems. Gjeilo, Ubi caritas; Lauridsen, O magnum mysterium; Górecki, Totus tuus; ...
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I think that Palestrina's Sicut Cervus would be a staple of most choirs who have traveled the road to polyphony.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores sdtalley3
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,721
    Ave verum corpus, Panis Angelicus, Tantum Ergo, O Salutaris Hostia
    Thanked by 1sdtalley3
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,947
    Victoria's Domine, non sum dignus is also a staple of beginner polyphony repertoire.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,046
    Are we talking about concert choirs, or liturgical choirs?
    For concert choirs, it's a repertoire-driven decision. They'd really rather not do religious music at all (I don't want to get into the politics of this, but it IS political), but they're stuck with these amazing masterworks. So they'll do the Allegri/Rockstro Miserere, various settings by the hot contemporary composers (Gjeilo, Lauridsen etc.), and the great Ordinary settings. I think one would have to establish which works are most popular, and then extrapolate from that which texts are most often done.
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