Blessed be Your Purity for SATB
  • AdteBeateJoseph3
    Posts: 69
    SATB setting of a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary found in the Daily Roman Missal.

    Blessed be your purity,
    May it be blessed for ever,
    For no less than God takes delight
    In such exalted beauty.
    To you, heavenly Princess,
    Holy Virgin Mary,
    I offer on this day
    My whole heart, life, and soul.
    Look upon me with compassion;
    Do not leave me, my mother.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Chrism
  • CGM
    Posts: 780
    I think that the phrase "blessed be" is typically pronounced with three syllables:
    "bless-ed be".
    Think, for example, of the priestly prayers over the bread and then the water & wine:
    "Blessed [two syllables] are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received..."
    and the congregation's response, "Blessed be [three syllables] God forever."

    As I looked over your score, I had to keep correcting my mental pronunciation.

    FWIW, I'd recommend changing all the "blessed"s to "blest", because that reads in the manner that you wish it to be sung.

    There's a recent thread about English pronunciation, and I think that this would be another fitting example for it: when is "blessed" two syllables, and when is it one?

    I believe that it's two when it begins a phrase: "blessèd are you" or "blessèd be the Lord",
    and one when it ends a phrase: "his life was very blessed" or "I felt blessed by her presence".

    In the prayer you've set, the word would be normatively two syllables in its first appearance,
    "Blessèd be your purity,"
    and one syllable in its second appearance,
    "May it be blessed forever."

    Make them both "blest" and problem solved.
    Thanked by 2Liam AdteBeateJoseph3
  • AdteBeateJoseph3
    Posts: 69
    Thank you for the feedback! English music is so tricky to write; I recalled multiple examples where one piece used Blessed (one syllable) where it could be blesséd, and vice versa! I guess the music itself has an influence on which one to use. I also thought about the modern English, I often hear blest appear more than blesséd.
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 508
    what a great idea. I have only seen this hymn in Spanish and its one of my favorites. Very nice.
    Thanked by 1AdteBeateJoseph3
  • AgnusDei1989
    Posts: 50
    I love this poem in the original Spanish! Apparently there's a much longer version that takes each of these lines and makes it the last line of each décima — quite the involved work of art, with the complex rhyme scheme. I've attempted to translate it, but again, the rhyme scheme makes it hard to do right!
    Thanked by 1AdteBeateJoseph3
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