Choral Public Domain Library

Hi all,

In case you didn't know, Matthew Curtis of Choral Tracks LLC (http://choraltracks.com/) makes beautiful recordings for choral composers.

For example, here is Matthew singing my Magnificat in F:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCQPQ39FqM

Best regards, Susan

Thanks, Susan, and welcome to CPDL. I know Matthew Curtis pretty well, as well as his work. He sings you Magnificat in F beatifully.

Chuck Giffen

Thank you Chuck! Btw, I'm still thinking about what kind of topic might generate some interest on the contemporary composers forum. I'll post there when I come up with something. -Susan

Hi Susan. Please do!! I'll also try to think of something.

The recording of your Magnificat is wonderful.
Thanks for the hint, which has pointed me to Matthew Curtis' offering.
Here you can hear him singing my "Ubi caritas":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo98rrZ888Q

Wow! One of the most gorgeous Ubi caritas settings I've ever heard. I love it so much I will print share it with my music director. I also shared it on twitter, google+ and choralnet.org.

Dear Susan,

I am glad that you like this setting. This shows that renaissance counterpoint is timeless and there was good reason why it ruled for about 150 years unaltered. Incidentally the Renaissance is still called in German the "classic" time of vocal music (which might be translated into English as the "golden age" of vocal music), while for all other arts "classic" refers to the much later classicism.

Best wishes, Chris

O Sapientia is lovely too. I started translating it but didn't get through all of it. It seems to be about the waste of the gift of wisdom.

@carlos:
I think that Susan does not refer to the O Antiphone "O Sapientia", but to a different text which you can hear sung in the style of a Fado here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sstoCsyfIP4

Despite the hexameter with medieval pronounciation (meter is created by stressed and unstressed syllables, not by long and short syllables, and -unlike in antiquity- no syllables are dropped), this is modern poetry, bceause in mediavel times drones for killing people were not yet known (verse 7).

@spartlan:
Let me try a translation into poor English (where possible, I have tried to use the same words as in the Latin original):

O wisdom, given to mortals by Apollon
that they may seek the truth assiduously and with a pure heart,
and that they invent means which lift the brother's misery,
make a roof for the poor, and revere the gods with music.

O wisdon, servant of the plans of the mighty
that they may obscure the truth schemingly with false words,
and that they invent means which kill humans from afar,
deprive even the destitute, and make the earth into a desert.

Maybe he was right, of whom an old tale tells,
that he called blessed on a mountain the poor in spirit.

Like in all great poetry, there is room for interpretation, so I would not want to impose my interpretation of this text onto you...

Thanks Chris, I should have imagined that Susan might be talking of a different text.

Chris, thank you for the translation. The meaning is different than what I got trying to translate it using Google translate. In your translation it seems wisdom is not wasted but used for good or evil.

what I got trying to translate it using Google translate.

Tried the translation of the Latin text into German out of curiosity, and the result is far from meaningful. It seems that Google translate is not aware that Latin, unlike English, is a language with declination and conjugation.

wisdom is not wasted but used for good or evil.

Or: a divine gift meant for good, but used for evil. Obviously, the poem skips the myths from early antiquity that describe knowledge as a divine gift taken by men against the will of the gods (Prometheus, Genesis), and instead describes it as a gift given by the gods to mortals (which might be a later idea? apparently, last Sunday's gospel of the talents follows this model).

The last verse leaves plenty of room for interpretations, and these are not mutually exclusive. One possible aspect is a bonmot by Chomsky: "It’s beyond irony that the richest most powerful countries in the world are racing towards disaster while the so-called primitive societies are the ones in the forefront of trying to avert it."

Or: a divine gift meant for good, but used for evil.

Yes, that makes sense.