Hmm.

[artsyhonker]

"A text in Latin shall be used", I read, of a choral composition competition.

It turns out they are a bit more picky than that:

Only texts by the following Latin Authors will be accepted: Ovidio (Publius Ovidius Naso), Orazio (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Virgilio (Publius Vergilius Maro), Catullo (Gaius Valerius Catullus), Marziale (Marcus Valerius Martialis), Lucrezio (Titus Lucretius Carus).

Being more a Christian sacred composer than anything else, and lacking a Classics background, I'm utterly unfamiliar with most of these. I understand Catullus is rather rude.

I suspect the pronunciation varies considerably from church Latin, too, though probably not so much that I can't set it well.

I feel a bit like this is a veiled attempt to filter out people who aren't posh enough, or haven't had the "right" educational background. I dislike those kinds of barriers to participation.

So: does anyone have any suggestions for me from those authors? Any passages you'd particularly like to hear me set to music?

Comments

[the_lady_lily]

Do you know, I rather fancy seeing what you do with the description of Queen Amata running away to the woods to try to hide her daughter, and bringing all the women to 'pretend' Bacchic fury with her. Virgil, Aeneid 7.385-405 - Latin here and a serviceable English translation here.

From a slightly more 'why the hell not' angle, you could have a go at Virgil's Eclogue Four, which is the one that the early Christian church decided was a prophecy of the coming of Christ - lots of nice 'lion laying down with lamb' stuff - Latin here and translation here, although you'd want to make a selection based on what passage grasps you more.

The other option which comes immediately to mind, and which might come to other people's minds as well but might work with your other experiences, is Horace's Carmen Saeculare -Latin and translation. Again, you'd probably need to cut it somewhere, but it is an actual hymn written to be performed at the Secular Games organised by the emperor Augustus in 17 BC (details over at Wikipedia are basic but accurate). So you could do sacred stuff with a sacred text if that felt like a thing.

Happy to go away and think some more, but those are the immediate thoughts which come to mind!