New chant inspired Magnificat for women's choir
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 136
    Although there might not be many here that sing in or direct a women's choir, but for those wo are, my new three part Magnificat might be of interest. I have made a video with score underlaid (sung by Julie Gaulcke, accompanied by me) and the sheet music is available from my website.

    I had written this piece for the "Music Award for Choral Music" presented by edition49 and Musikwerkstatt Siegburg, where it was awarded a shared third place out of approximately 300 submissions from 19 countries, which is quite a honor for me.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen sdtalley3
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 607
    Its very nice, but note that some of the accents on the latin words are incorrect. For example "Divites" is not di-VI-tes, but DI-vi-tes or another example "Spirituo" in the Doxology has should have the accent on spi-RI-tu-o, not SPIR-i-tu-o... these are of course common mistakes world wide- and its just nitpicking.... but it is very nice, very medieval flavor.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 136
    @monasteryliturgist Many thanks for having such a close look at the piece. Concerning "DI-vi-tes", the stress is marked in the score by means of an ictus, and Julie actually observes it. If this does not make clear how it is meant to be sung, I would greatly appreciate suggestions how to notate it instead.

    Concerning "SPI-ri-tui" versus "spi-RI-tui", it seems that both variants are common. Out of curiosity, I have checked all (?) doxologies in Monteverdi's "Selve morale" and counted nine times with the stress on the first syllable (SPI-ri-tui) versus seven times with the stress on the second syllable (spi-RI-tui). This is almost a tie, albeit with a slight favor towards SPI-ri-tui. Schütz in his Latin Magnificat also set it as SPI-ri-tui.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,636
    It’s complicated. The word accent is what it is. The musical accent is always a bit problematic, because the nominative and other declensions have the accent on spi-, by virtue of being three syllables with the long vowel being where it was when vowel length was observed.

    Almost everyone gets it wrong. Ditto Ádjuva.
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 136
    It’s complicated.

    Ok, my next sacred pieces will be based on Esperanto texts again. In this case, this was not an option, though, because only submissions in German, English or Latin were permitted.
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