Looking For A Good Text

So, I've been thinking a lot in writing a bigger work for choir, but I'm can't find a text that fulfills my expectations. Have you guys got any hint? It can be in "any" language or "any" theme, with some personal restrictions... in fact, I don't want to impose limits; if you have a good idea for a text, can you share it?

Thanks

hmm, you could try a Requiem. As far as i know, they all are intended to have the same lyrics.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Requiem/lyrics.htm

I really want to compose a requiem (I have already started some sketches), but I don't feel comfortable with the catholic text... I like the idea of the Requiem, but I want to use a different text.

Are there any Brazilian secular texts? Some long poems or something from Independence days to use? You could compose a Brazilian Requiem, the central theme(s) or leitmotiv(s) of which could be a corruption of some phrase(s) of the Hino Nacional Brasileiro... Ordem e Progresso... or what other civil and national and culturally meaningful texts and mottos...

Are there any Brazilian secular texts? Some long poems or something from Independence days to use? You could compose a Brazilian Requiem, the central theme(s) or leitmotiv(s) of which could be a corruption of some phrase(s) of the Hino Nacional Brasileiro... Ordem e Progresso... or what other civil and national and culturally meaningful texts and mottos...

The only real traditional and actually national texts would be the ones written by south-american indians in old tupi. The only problem is that there is almos no text in this language, as it was forbidden a long long time ago (now it's not any more, but it's too late).

In my opinion, a real Brazilian Requiem would have to be written in old tupi, but this task would be almost impossible! Not even the living indians know their ancestor's language any more...

The only real traditional and actually national texts would be the ones written by south-american indians in old tupi. The only problem is that there is almos no text in this language, as it was forbidden a long long time ago (now it's not any more, but it's too late).

 

In my opinion, a real Brazilian Requiem would have to be written in old tupi, but this task would be almost impossible! Not even the living indians know their ancestor's language any more...

Are there any workable translations?

Could you use some more contemporary revolutionary texts? I here there's quite a lot of political discord in your country. Maybe now's the time to start looking for newer material...

Brazil had some really good poets/writers in the 18-early 20 centuries (MACHADO DE ASSIS :D :D ). Try them instead, i can easily imagine their works being "translated" into a choral.

I really want to compose a requiem (I have already started some sketches), but I don't feel comfortable with the catholic text... I like the idea of the Requiem, but I want to use a different text.

lol

Do you know what a requiem is? You can have a requiem without music and just read the prayers. The text of the prayers is what makes it a requiem. Otherwise it's just a song cycle or whatever. There may be different prayers used in different denominations if you wanted to write an episcopalian requiem or whatever instead of Catholic.

Do you know what a requiem is? You can have a requiem without music and just read the prayers. The text of the prayers is what makes it a requiem. Otherwise it's just a song cycle or whatever. There may be different prayers used in different denominations if you wanted to write an Episcopalian requiem or whatever instead of Catholic.

What do you make of Brahms's A German Requiem, then, which doesn't use the traditional Catholic requiem text, but rather excerpts from Luther's German translated Bible? or Britten's War Requiem, which is non-liturgical and greatly deviates from the Latin text? or Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles which, though it has parts of the Latin Requiem Mass, doesn't actually incorporate the 'Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine' from which the form gets its name, and is also not strictly liturgical? or Takemitsu's Requiem for String Orchestra, which doesn't use any text or even a choir?

Requiem, these days, only means 'death mass'. There's no rule in music stating that a requiem be exclusive to specified and accepted religious texts, or any text of any particularity, or any text at all - except that it be about the dead, and as a 'hymn, composition, or service'. Its evolution has given enough precedent to move away from the original texts and forms while still holding the word meaningfully to its definition and purpose; the greater and older traditions of the piece aren't now very relevant. All that's necessary is to compose a piece in which the singular sentiment of mourning or celebration of the dead is concentrically expressed in the music itself. There might as well be a secular death mass now; it certainly doesn't need to be Catholic or variously religious otherwise. The sentiment can even be abstract, made only in sounds, absent any real language or words; but only feelings elicited by sound-symbols transmitted from the instruments to the audience, unspecific sensations of the meanings of one's experiences with death and the living lost - which no text or person has any real right to or authority on in absolute terms. It is a human experience beyond ideology and belief, and nearly beyond understanding, if not literally beyond cognizance. The experience ought to be expressed in any way possible, if only to bid a distant, removed, personal and meaningful acquaintance of it, and maybe then a newly wound thread of knowledge and nascent acceptance of it and its place between us and posterity.

Do a forum canata, by setting the text of the posts on YC

What do you make of Brahms's A German Requiem, then, which doesn't use the traditional Catholic requiem text, but rather excerpts from Luther's German translated Bible? or Britten's War Requiem, which is non-liturgical and greatly deviates from the Latin text? or Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles which, though it has parts of the Latin Requiem Mass, doesn't actually incorporate the 'Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine' from which the form gets its name, and is also not strictly liturgical? or Takemitsu's Requiem for String Orchestra, which doesn't use any text or even a choir?

 

Requiem, these days, only means 'death mass'. There's no rule in music stating that a requiem be exclusive to specified and accepted religious texts, or any text of any particularity, or any text at all - except that it be about the dead, and as a 'hymn, composition, or service'. Its evolution has given enough precedent to move away from the original texts and forms while still holding the word meaningfully to its definition and purpose; the greater and older traditions of the piece aren't now very relevant. All that's necessary is to compose a piece in which the singular sentiment of mourning or celebration of the dead is concentrically expressed in the music itself. There might as well be a secular death mass now; it certainly doesn't need to be Catholic or variously religious otherwise. The sentiment can even be abstract, made only in sounds, absent any real language or words; but only feelings elicited by sound-symbols transmitted from the instruments to the audience, unspecific sensations of the meanings of one's experiences with death and the living lost - which no text or person has any real right to or authority on in absolute terms. It is a human experience beyond ideology and belief, and nearly beyond understanding, if not literally beyond cognizance. The experience ought to be expressed in any way possible, if only to bid a distant, removed, personal and meaningful acquaintance of it, and maybe then a newly wound thread of knowledge and nascent acceptance of it and its place between us and posterity.

Those aren't requiems. It is a specific rite with a steadfast structure and official God-approved text. I can write a piano sonata and call it a symphony, but we both know better. Requiemesque is a more appropriate adjective.

There's no such thing as a non liturgical mass. If it's non-liturgical, it's not a mass.

Things evolve and change. The sonata structure was already severely altered in Beethoven's era, and nowadays it can be written in a number of different ways... and still be considered a sonata.

The same works for fugues, for examples. (although not everyone agree with it... but I do).

The idea of composing a Requiem is: I want to compose something for the dead people. It's neither a mass, nor a different lithurgical text, but something different. The name "Requiem" comes both from tradition and from the latin word "requiem" (rest).

In the case of Brahms, I think his requiem is more to comfort the living than it is for the dead. I really like this poem called 'My Butterfly' by Robert Frost. It's a requiem (actually an elegy) of sorts, although not outright religious: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/robertfrost/12054  

(1)Those aren't requiems. It is a specific rite with a steadfast structure and official God-approved text. I can write a piano sonata and call it a symphony, but we both know better. Requiemesque is a more appropriate adjective.

 

(2)There's no such thing as a [non-liturgical] mass. If it's non-liturgical, it's not a mass.

(1)Ideas are rarely steadfast, and never so in the arts. In such a liberal field as music, which depends so greatly on change and progress for its survival and relevance in the world, nothing - neither in theory nor concepts - stays the same. A requiem, like a sonata or symphony, changes through time: not just in structure, but also in meaning and use. Symphonies at one time were strict as absolute music, initially as 'concertos' in ternary form or as introductory pieces; then, growing in wealth, now as 'symphonies' as we commonly know them, serious ones consisting of four movements, chamber ones and the like sometimes consisting of three (as with Mozart's 'Salzburg Symphonies'), in the way of the old concertos, and never using anything but the basic, small baroque and classical orchestras. Beethoven introduced new instruments, and with them greatly enlarged the orchestra; he also made the symphony into program music in the 'Pastoral' Sixth, in which he also introduced a fifth movement, deviating entirely from tradition of three or four depending on the context and patronage.

Romantic composers followed much in the same way: if not making the music strictly programmatic, but adding and taking away movements depending on their need to either express themselves or advance their art. One of the last great Romantic composers, Mahler, had symphonies ranging from two movements (the Eighth, 'Symphony of a Thousand') to six movements (the Third); Richard Strauss composed his Alpine Symphony as a continuous piece consisting of twenty-two programmatic sections; Bax composed all of his symphonies in three movements; Liszt composed his A Faust Symphony in three character pictures as it's described, and his A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy in similar ternary form, and in even more programmatic fashion; and many composers today often compose their symphonies in single continuous movements, as some of their predecessors did: eg, Barber's First; Havergal Brian's symphonies 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12-17, 24, and 31; Roy Harris's symphonies 3, 7, 8 and 11; Lutosławski's Third and Fourth symphonies; Nørgård's Second; Allan Pettersson's symphonies 6, 7, and 9; Willem Pijper's First and Third symphonies; Shostakovitch's Second and Third symphonies; Scriabin's Fourth and Fifth symphonies; Kurt Weill's First; and so on.

Would you say that these masters were wrong in calling their pieces 'symphonies' on account of their divergence from history? And we can't forget that the earliest symphonies were called 'concertos' of various sorts and otherwise used as introductory pieces: given the precedence of this evolution alone, I don't see why one might not eventually call a piano sonata a 'Symphony'; the reverse has certainly been done, as with, for instance, Godowsky's Symphonic Metamorphosis on 'Die Fledermaus', Alkan's Symphony for Solo Piano, and which Liszt tried to do, and variably succeeded, in his transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies. It would take a fair amount of arrogance, it seems to me, to say 'yes', that these great composers were wrong in their artistic estimations. I certainly wouldn't call them all 'symphonyesque' or 'sonataesque' or 'requiemesque': they are simply what they are by the arbitration of the artist and either his needs of expression or the needs of his art; and for the mass of the public and more discerning folk alike there's little use of doubt but in reactionary obstinacy, since their pieces incorporate elements of all that they describe: for instance, that the piece be symphonic (sounding all together), that it sometimes depicts something in program, and that it has a certain form, a form which the words 'symphony' and 'sonata' and even 'requiem' don't absolutely include. Evolution is in particulars and technicalities, here, and all that's described points the way toward an artistic liberality that is at once necessary and then justified. 

I'll refer back to my previous post about what all I believe of the evolution of the requiem.

(2) There's no reason why the mass can't be re-appropriated for contemporary purposes. There's precedence for this, too. For instance in Schubert's German Mass, D 872, which doesn't use liturgical texts, but rather the religious poems of Johann Philipp Neumann.

I can't say I understand your rigid Tory attitudes toward change in music, even if that change is a reexamination and re-utilization of old materials, musical and non-musical, or forms for new purposes. There's no reason why the traditional mass can't be reconfigured to be secular or variably non-liturgical. There's no reason why a requiem has to subsist within the purist strictures of the Catholic Missa pro defunctis. There is no reason why a piano can't make a symphony and an orchestra can't make a sonata - but, again, only by silly, purist, reactionary obstinacy. This is something to be gotten over.

I always loved the funeral song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline Act IV, scene 2.  

Fear no more the heat o' the sun; 
Nor the furious winter's rages, 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney sweepers come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown of the great, 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: 
Care no more to clothe and eat; 
To thee the reed is as the oak: 
The sceptre, learning, physic, must 
All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash, 
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone; 
Fear not slander, censure rash; 
Thou hast finished joy and moan; 
All lovers young, all lovers must 
Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

No exorciser harm thee! 
Nor no witchcraft charm thee! 
Ghost unlaid forbear thee! 
Nothing ill come near thee! 
Quiet consummation have; 
And renowned be thy grave! 

Another one I can think of (and probably the most beautiful poem about death) that has always been a source of comfort for me has been Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant. Especially the final stanza:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Things evolve and change. The sonata structure was already severely altered in Beethoven's era, and nowadays it can be written in a number of different ways... and still be considered a sonata.

 

The same works for fugues, for examples. (although not everyone agree with it... but I do).

 

The idea of composing a Requiem is: I want to compose something for the dead people. It's neither a mass, nor a different lithurgical text, but something different. The name "Requiem" comes both from tradition and from the latin word "requiem" (rest).

Elegy is a better term. The problem with using "requiem" is that the christian rite is alive and well. It is entirely possible to write a setting of the requiem mass for liturgical use in a modern service and in order to be usable it must conform to specific guidelines. Labeling something that doesn't conform to that, although many greats have done it, is misleading. Not to mention potentially offensive to fundamentalists.

(1)Ideas are rarely steadfast, and never so in the arts. In such a liberal field as music, which depends so greatly on change and progress for its survival and relevance in the world, nothing - neither in theory nor concepts - stays the same. A requiem, like a sonata or symphony, changes through time: not just in structure, but also in meaning and use. Symphonies at one time were strict as absolute music, initially as 'concertos' in ternary form or as introductory pieces; then, growing in wealth, now as 'symphonies', serious ones consisting of four movements, chamber ones and the like sometimes consisting of three (as with Mozart's 'Salzburg Symphonies'), in the way of the old concertos, and never using anything but the basic, small baroque and classical orchestras. Beethoven introduced new instruments, and with them greatly enlarged the orchestra; he also made the symphony into program music in the 'Pastoral' Sixth, in which he also introduced a fifth movement, deviating entirely from tradition of three or four depending on the context and patronage.

 

Romantic composers followed much in the same way: if not making the music strictly programmatic, but adding and taking away movements depending on their need to either express themselves or advance their art. One of the last great Romantic composers, Mahler, had symphonies ranging from two movements (the Eighth, 'Symphony of a Thousand') to six movements (the Third); Richard Strauss composed his Alpine Symphony as a continuous piece consisting of twenty-two programmatic sections; Bax composed all of his symphonies in three movements; Liszt composed his A Faust Symphony in three character pictures as it's described, and his programmatic A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy in similar ternary form, and in even more programmatic fashion; and many composers today often compose their symphonies in single continuous movements, as some of their predecessors did: eg, Barber's Symphony 1, Op 9; Havergal Brian's symphonies 5, 6, 8, 9,10, 12-17, 24, and 31; Roy Harris's symphonies 3, 7, 8 and 11; Lutosławski's Third and Fourth symphonies; Nørgård's Second; Allan Pettersson's symphonies 6, 7, and 9; Willem Pijper's First and Third symphonies; Shostakovitch's Second and Third symphonies; Scriabin's Fourth and Fifth symphonies; Kurt Weill's First; and so on.

 

Would you say that these masters were wrong in calling their pieces 'symphonies' on account of their divergence from history? And we can't forget that the earliest symphonies were called 'concertos' of various sorts and otherwise used as introductory pieces: given the precedence of this evolution alone, I don't see why one might not eventually call a piano sonata a 'Symphony'; the reverse has certainly been done, as with, for instance, Godowsky's Symphonic Metamorphosis on 'Die Fledermaus', Alkan's Symphony for Solo Piano, and which Liszt tried to do, and variably succeeded, in his transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies. It would take a fair amount of arrogance, it seems to me, to say 'yes', that these great composers were wrong in their artistic estimations. I certainly wouldn't call them all 'symphonyesque' or 'sonataesque' or 'requiemesque': they are simply what they are by the arbitration of the artist and either his needs of expression or the needs of his art; and for the mass of the public and more discerning folk alike there's little use of doubt but in reactionary obstinacy, since their pieces incorporate elements of all that they describe: for instance, that the piece be symphonic (sounding all together), that it sometimes depicts something in program, and that it has a certain form, a form which the words 'symphony' and 'sonata' don't absolute include. Evolution is in particulars and technicalities, anyway, and all that's described points the way toward an artistic liberality that is at once necessary and then justified. 

 

I'll refer back to my previous post about what all I believe of the evolution of the requiem.

 

(2) There's no reason why the mass can't be re-appropriated for contemporary purposes. There's precedence for this, too. For instance in Schubert's German Mass, D 872, which doesn't use liturgical texts, but rather the religious poems of Johann Philipp Neumann.

 

I can't say I understand your rigid Tory attitudes toward change in music, even if that change is a reexamination and re-utilization of old materials, musical and non-musical, or forms for new purposes. There's no reason why the traditional mass can't be reconfigured to be secular, or otherwise non-liturgical. There's no reason why a requiem has to subsist within the purist strictures of the Catholic Missa pro defunctis. There is no reason why a piano can't make a symphony and an orchestra can't make a sonata - but, again, by silly purist, reactionary obstinacy. It's something to gotten over, and nothing more.

A mass is a rite, a specific form of worship still in widespread use. It CAN NOT be drastically altered and still be considered a mass. Plain and simple.

You can not adapt it for non liturgical use, but you can write a song cycle influenced by the history, culture, and feel of liturgical music.

Elegy is a better term. The problem with using "requiem" is that the [Christian] rite is alive and well. It is entirely possible to write a setting of the requiem mass for liturgical use in a modern service and in order to be usable it must conform to specific guidelines. Labeling something that doesn't conform to that, although many greats have done it, is misleading. Not to mention potentially offensive to fundamentalists.

There are, again, no reasons for these things to be true. They might not be usable in Catholic or other Christian churches, but they could be elsewhere, in whatever place of mourning and for whoever people accept the grieving artistic impulse by which the music is composed, no matter its 'widespread use' elsewhere and for whatever that means. If offense is given, it is no fault of the mourning and artistic. Fundamentalists will have to put up with a changing world that gives to the liberal and free and censures reactionary royalists. Art must be free beyond the arbitrary demarcations of religious totalitarian sentiment and the fear and frustration it inheres either in its own practitioners or those who it terms to be its enemies. It is fair to shun its convictions and traditions if art becomes more free for it. And here, I think, it is all in the right to remake the requiem mass into a secular expression.

 

 

There are, again, no reasons for these things to be true. They might not be usable in Catholic or other Christian churches, but they could be elsewhere, in whatever place of mourning and for whoever people accept the grieving artistic impulse by which the music is composed, no matter its 'widespread use' elsewhere and for whatever that means. If offense is given, it is no fault of the mourning and artistic. Fundamentalists will have to put up with a changing world that gives to the liberal and free and censures reactionary royalists. Art must be free beyond the arbitrary demarcations of religious totalitarian sentiment and the fear and frustration it inheres either in its own practitioners or those who it terms to be its enemies. It is fair to shun its convictions and traditions if art becomes more free for it. And here, I think, it is all in the right to remake the requiem mass into a secular expression.

 

A mass is by definition a catholic church service, and a setting of a mass is music set to the prayers used in said service.

You seem to be displaying a fundamental lack of awareness of what a mass is. It's not a musical form that can change over time. It is not independent art. It is a functional component of a sacred religious rite that in general does not change without the pope's permission.

Massesque does not equal mass.

A mass is by definition a setting of the prayers used in a catholic church service.

 

If you don't use these prayers IT DOESN'T COUNT AS A MASS.

 

This isn't about art or progress or anything. It's about a word with a specific definition.

The definition doesn't matter. As I've made the case for already, these things change: what a symphony was, what a concerto was, what a sonata was, has all changed drastically over time. The same can be done for the musical mass and any other form of music. definitions simply don't matter; they can be remade to fit the artist and his art, rightly and justifiably. To ignore this, you'll have to forgo historical contexts and what it means for ideas to evolve.

"The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism) to music."

"The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism) to music."

You seem to be displaying a fundamental lack of awareness of what a mass is. It's not a musical form that can change over time. It is not independent art. It is a functional component of a sacred religious rite that in general does not change without the pope's permission.

 

Massesque does not equal mass.

Again, it doesn't matter. It can be re-appropriated for secular purposes and made into an 'independent art'. Definitions are changeable; they change as uses become more prominent. If people were widely to begin composing pieces on secular themes which they termed 'mass', it would eventually be added to the dictionary. And you don't need a Pope for that. And it would simply be mass; or there would be some differentiation, calling this 'Catholic Mass' and this other 'Secular Mass'. However it goes. And the same for 'requiem'.

Obviously, its got to be a Tolkien songs from Lord of the Rings!

 

 

Do a forum canata, by setting the text of the posts on YC

Now that is creativity