Fwd: Laudes Organi Vocabulary and Alternate Translation
Elizabeth Norton
Fellow Choir Members,
I offer to you all the attached vocabulary and alternate translation for the Latin text of our current wonderfully challenging piece.
The text of this piece contains quite a few Latin words that were unfamiliar to me, and the translation that Beth distributed to us left me puzzled as to what those words really meant. Since I personally so much better appreciate vocal music when I relate to the meaning and role in native syntax of every word, I started looking up the mystery words in various Latin dictionaries.
I also looked for other translations on-line. I found an exact replica of our text and translation in the program notes for an April 2004 concert of the San Francisco Lyric Chorus, available here: http://www.sflc.org/concerts/programs/LaudesOrgani.pdf . I found a German version, obviously word-for-word equivalent to our English translation, available here - http://skv-chor.multimediaart.at/2012/03/15/text-von-laudes-organi/ - originating from the program notes for June 2010 concerts of the Neuer Basler Kammerchor. I found no other complete translations and still wonder about the origin of our translation.
But I did find a fascinating in-depth article entitled “The Genesis of Kodály's Laudes Organi,” by Katalin Komlós, published in The Musical Times, Vol. 148, No. 1899 (Summer, 2007), pp. 63-71 and available at the following link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434458 . In this article there are numerous references to much older source material and to an analysis of the text in The Organ in Western Culture 750-1250, by Peter Williams. Would anyone happen to have a copy of this very expensive book?
After I had looked up or plausibly figured out a critical few of the mystery words, my understanding of the Latin text diverged quite a lot from what I will call the “standard translation” that we have. So I undertook putting together an alternate one. In it, I try to adhere to documented meanings of the Latin words, and to the Latin’s syntactic relationships and word order, even if stilted-sounding in English. I avoid inserting pronouns and similar niceties that yearn to be there in the corresponding English idiom. Bottom line, my primary objective is better understanding of the Latin on its own terms, with pretty-sounding English being a secondary, expendable objective. But one beautiful phrase that I very intentionally stretched to retain is “paragon of melody.” If anyone who looks at my version closely thinks of improvements in my English word choices, I’d enjoy hearing about them.
One mystery still remaining for me in this text is the true meaning of the word flautes (plural of flautis ?). I’d appreciate being informed of any documented definition of this word, which I thought for a while might be a name for a human bellows power source; but no, that’s calcante (from Italian calcare; trample).
Thanks!
Chris Floyd
Developing Tenor