Easter Vigil Salmos 2 & 4 pointing
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    After a few years of 3-lesson vigils I'm scrambling to put back together a multilingual service with 7 Psalms and would be grateful for proof-reading & other pointers, so to speak. (Please do start a separate thread in the category General Discussion for the usual digressions on whether God is pleased with mixed worshipers, though!)
    Thanked by 1Salieri
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    (What about mixed-up worshipers?)

    The only book I have with me at the moment in Spanish is a 1962 Missal, so I can't check anything, but I'm curious about the first two syllables in the last verse of the first Psalm: Should they be separated by a hyphen? They look like two separate words which should be linked by a slur (the correct name of that punctuation mark eludes at the moment).
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    Thanks, yes, "Me_en - se - ñarás" for "Me-en - se - ñarás". I must have let go of shift!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    current version
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,721
    II, 2nd line, 2nd measure ‘tá en’ is missing the elision mark.
    Thanked by 1Richard Mix
  • Disclaimer: I'm not a Spanish amateur, never mind a Spanish expert.....

    It seems to me, at a cursory glance, that "Mi" gets much more emphasis than Dios, on more than one occasion.

    Granted, you're working with the approved translation, and granted the accent patterns in Spanish may exacerbate the problem or diminish it.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    ¡Dios mio! Instead it seems to me that Dios gets the highest pitch, no more a problem in any case than English word order "my God".
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,032
    For the verses of Psalm 15/16, I'm not sure why the accented syllable isn't on the penultimate note as suggested by the psalm tone itself: "y mi copa," not "y mi copa"; "a la muerte," not "a la muerte." And at the end of the third verse, it seems "tu derecho" can be set easily to the regular pattern (tu (f) de(ga)re(g)cho.(f))

    I see that you are generally placing the accented syllable on the last note ("al Señor", "corazón"), but this is not completely consistent ("mano," "serena") - which I understand, since the accent pattern of Spanish (like English) does not follow the Latin. However, I think that it works better to keep the original accenting pattern of the chant whenever possible, with unavoidable exceptions like those above, instead of the other way around.

    One other suggestion: although the elisions you mark are naturally done when speaking the text, I have found it is usually better to sing both syllables separately ("presente al Señor"). Otherwise I have found it can sound "rushed" or even garbled since the singer is pronouncing every other syllable individually on separate notes. The exception is when the elision is between two identical vowels.
  • Richard,

    I don't know the Spanish well enough to comment, except that receiving the highest pitch on an unaccented syllable dilutes, rather than concentrates, the emphasis.