1 Oh, sing to the LORD a new song!
Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Sing to the LORD, bless His name;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.
Our choirmaster told us that the five- and six-note slurry runs are from Scottish folk singing originally - which is pretty interesting, because it all sounds quite new and on the edge of things to me!
6 comments:
Wow - a beautiful song here. I'm not familiar with the work of James MacMillan, but I think I can hear the influence of Scottish folk music in it. I've not heard of five or six note slurry runs before, but am assuming that this refers to where there's a run together of what seems like eighth notes, which lends a nice quality to the song.
It doesn't put me in mind of "folk music" as such, but of the elaboration that starts to happen when congregational psalmody is sung very, very slowly. Temperley discusses the tendency for aurally-learned congregational psalmody to get slower and slower over the generations in "The Music of the English Parish Church", and I wonder whether there were similar developments in the Scottish churches.
Thanks for the comments, Enoch and Kathryn. I'm a little curious about the "folk music" thing myself, and maybe will see if I can find out anything about it.
Yes, I meant the eighth notes; sorry, that was just my own made-up terminology! It's a really gorgeous song, I agree.
(James MacMillan is Scottish, and a devout Catholic, BTW....)
Beautiful song and great blog with lots of interesting info.
Thanks! Nice of you to say so, even though I've been a bit lax about posting lately.
Will have to get on that soon....
Post a Comment