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Choosing a text for the choir piece
Topic Started: Feb 21 2015, 05:56 PM (407 Views)
Emma Hornby
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I just received this question via email:

Quote:
 
"must be suitable for use within the Anglican liturgy” - that poses a question: shall the words of the choir composition be English? Or the text can be Latin?. That is not very clear to me.


The important thing is that it needs to be a text that will be useful to these choirs (so they will put as many of your compositions into their regular repertoire as possible - that's my plan!!!

We don't mind what language they will be in - Latin is fine, English also. They will be pretty accustomed to singing in French and German too. Other European languages would be ok, but if it is something very alien to English speakers, you might be well advised to give a pronunciation guide at the beginning of the piece.

But it does need to have a Christian text. It could be biblical, of course. It could be a mixture of two or more biblical passages. Or it could be inspired by a biblical text, but departing from it in some ways that make a theological emphasis that is important to you (or that relates to the Old Hispanic theology in some way if you like). It could be a freely composed text, inspired by Christian theology and perhaps by a bible text (just as the Old Hispanic orations are - although they were intoned on a single note probably - definitely not sung to a composed melody - they still might inspire you in the way they are structured textually). The important thing is that the text must not be something that a cathedral choir will feel uncomfortable singing. Veneration of Saints isn't as important in the Anglican church as it is in the Roman Catholic church, but a Marian text would not be out of the question (after all, the Magnificat is sung every day in choral evensong!). A text in honour of (say) Santa Eulalia might not find much use if it was based on her vita - there isn't much call for anthems about gruesome martyr deaths in Anglican worship. But choosing biblical texts used in the Iberian church in her honour would of course be easy to transfer to other occasions.

We don't mean this to be an annoying constraint at all. We want to try to guide you towards choosing texts that inspire you to write great music, that the cathedral choirs will then want to sing more than once, and therefore they need to be texts that fit with the other parts of the liturgy that the choirs are participating in.

I hope that helps. Please do feel free, any of you, to ask for more clarification, or to ask us for ideas about possible texts (give us a starting point - an idea or a flavour - and we can think of some suitable candidates)
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apv
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Dear Emma,

Thanks. It is much more clear to me now.
Best wishes
António Pinho Vargas
Edited by apv, Feb 22 2015, 01:10 PM.
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Emma Hornby
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You're welcome! Very happy to offer more advice and clarification to anyone who wants it :)
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Emma Hornby
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Just bumping this discussion thread up to the top of the page because someone asked me a very similar question by email today :)
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