Orthodox/Byzantine chant in Latin
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    Odd request:
    Orthodox composer (and former classmate) Kurt Sander sent me a a Latin version of the Cherubic Hymn that he'd found. I don't know what it was made for. There is a tradition of the Cherubic Hymn in the West, in the Missa Greca, but it's pretty marginal. (He also found a Slavonification of Mozart's Ave Verum, which was a hoot.)

    Anyway, we did it as an Offertory motet, and people loved it. "More like this, please." Which I'm open to, in moderation. But I'm not finding more. I've found English, but I can't do that. I've found Jacques Goar's Euchologion sive Rituale Graecorum, 1647, which is a Greek/Latin translation of the Divine Liturgy, but it's hard to work with for somebody who isn't fluent in either Orthodox church music or Latin. It's not a thing with a large natural constituency. I discovered an Orthodox forum where somebody had brought up the notion of a Latin Divine Liturgy, and to call the response "frosty" would be an understatement.

    Does anyone know of anything else like this? I don't want to go overboard, because my real job is to do music of the Latin rite.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,156
    Did the people love the fact that it was Latinised Greek? Or perhaps they loved the text itself, they representing the Cherubim? Or was it the metrical chant melody you used, that pleased the most?

    Can you post the music?
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    I think it was the music.

    cherubic hymn 434.pdf
    210K
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  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,156
    I think there will be little of this to find and nothing really traditional. If anything the reverse (e.g. old Roman chant in Greek).

    Steinberg's "Passion Week After Old Russian Chants" (1923) has Latin text with Russian and English (in that edition) and might contain something useful.

    I found this from the OCA: https://www.oca.org/PDF/Music/Paschal/pascha.tro.in.latin.pdf which might be useful in Eastertide. No idea why it's in Latin.
    Thanked by 1Jeffrey Quick
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    The Steinberg might be useful for words, but the music is quite beyond us.
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    There are a few examples on the following site as well as on CPDL:
    https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/partitions/partitions-par-theme-liturgique/

    At least one Byzantine text, "Coenae tuae mirabili," made its way into the Ambrosian repertory somehow. "Let All Mortal Flesh" is well known in the West, but as a motet/anthem, not an actual part of the liturgy. I'm not interested in doing it, but since it forms part of the Roman liturgy on Good Friday, I wonder if it would be permissible to sing the Trisagion in Greek as a motet on other occasions?

    In the other direction, Ukrainian Orthodox Archbishop Ionafan's Liturgy of Peace may be of interest. It is a setting of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Church Slavonic to Gregorian melodies.
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kHin7n8OEx5e7hFq7BiiLbmw-h1Zz8kh8
    Thanked by 3Andrew_Malton CHGiffen Jeffrey Quick
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 539
    You might be able to scratch the itch by performing Hildegard? Depending on your ideas of accurate interpretation, performances with drones or tremulandi or microtonal intervals as some people do produce something blatantly unlike mainstream Solesmes chant and “exotic” to the modern ear. Her florid writing and the big range some of her works have also signal that it’s something special.
    Thanked by 2hilluminar Jeffrey Quick
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    We do some Hildegard too.
  • RevAMG
    Posts: 162
    I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for since it's in English, but the (Orthodox) Holy Transfiguration Monastery of the Archdiocese of Canada (Orthodox Church in America) put together the two volumes below of Orthodox Liturgical Hymns in Gregorian Chant in 2018, which include some of Fr. Columba Kelly's work.

    Recordings are available HERE. [I quite enjoy the Great Prokeimenon of Pascha.]
    Orthodox Liturgical Hymns in Gregorian Chant-1.pdf
    9M
    Orthodox Liturgical Hymns in Gregorian Chant-2.pdf
    18M
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  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    I'd encountered those. Alas, English no worky in TLM. Maybe I should just stick to Latin Rite music.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,721
    Jeffrey: where do you find your Hildegard? I’ve had a heckuva time trying to track her works down.
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 364
    I find the whole idea a bit eccentric… We wouldn’t countenance organ alternatim versets in the Byzantine liturgy, so I don’t know why one would attempt to introduce Byzantine aesthetics into the Latin liturgy.
    Thanked by 1Chris Garton-Zavesky
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    The choirmaster of the Schola Sainte-Cécile sometimes uses Russian polyphonic chant translated into Latin. For instance, it is customary to sing the "Anti-Cheruvikon" of the Liturgy of the Presanctified for the communion of Good Friday.

    @Andrew_Malton On the Paschal troparion: in the Byzantine rite, it is sometimes the custom to sing the Paschal troparion in various languages, including Latin. Here is a very good rendition of that troparion at the Russicum: https://youtu.be/pVslvdBwjzU

    Christus resurrexit a mortuis, morte mortem calcavit, et mortuis in sepulchris, vitam donavit!
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen tomjaw Andrew_Malton
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,937
    For what it is worth, for those who don't know (perhaps few of us!) Henri Adam de Villiers is also choirmaster of the Russian Catholic Church in Paris.
    Thanked by 1Jehan_Boutte
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    Indeed he is - that is how I met him - But we rarely sing in Latin there. ^^
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,937
    Right, of course; my point was simply to explain why this isn't as bizarre as it seems.
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  • Chris_McAvoyChris_McAvoy
    Posts: 389
    Rather than focusing on latin, what would be most appropriate would be to sing any text you like in liturgical greek. I am unaware of any prohibition on singing greek in the roman liturgy, especially in small doses. This topic and question is an unique one, I do not believe a large body of byzantine rite music exists in latin, only bits and pieces.

  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,937
    Well, in the classical Roman rite, you technically can't, although I'm not especially scrupulous about this at communion (though I find it kind of odd to take from Constantinople and Antioch like this).
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,044
    Jeffrey: where do you find your Hildegard?

    At my last gig, the question was more "Where DON'T I find my Hildegard?" We had lots of editions and facsimiles (including a facsimile of the Riesenkodex). This is one of the more useful:
    Lieder / Hildegard von Bingen ; nach den Handschriften herausgegeben von Pudentiana Barth, M. Immaculata Ritscher, und Joseph Schmidt-Görg. Salzburg : O. Müller, 1992

    But there's not a ton online.

    Here's a "solesmization" of O magne Pater that I did for my peeps, actually a conflation of the two sources.
    Hildegard O magne pater F.pdf
    407K
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,369
    http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/music.html

    A CONDUCTOR’S GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF HILDEGARD VON BINGEN by Katie Gardiner
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjriv-tr6H5AhVShlwKHWrZAI8QFnoECBsQAQ&url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/26659/Gardiner%2C%20Katie%20%28DM%20Choral%20Conducting%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y&usg=AOvVaw11GgFH568hn40-NFyQcpfD
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