Remember that piece I was planning to write using the text in Latin? Well, in the end I changed the idea a bit. Now I am going to use a different text. It is called the Völuspá (The Prophecy of the Seeress), it comes from Viking mythology, from a collection of epic poems called the Prose Edda. It deals with the creation and the destruction of the Earth, with a subsequent rebirth.
Artistic depiction from one of the final scenes of the Völuspá, when
Thor fights Jörmungandr, the serpent. He is succesful but mortally wounded,
and is only capable of taking 9 steps before dying.
I like this idea more for several reasons. The first is that the text is much more appealing to me, it is very epic and it deals with themes that have always interested me, such as the Nordic gods, the orgin of life, the end of the world, epic battles, and mythological creatures such as Jörmungandr (the great serpent). Secondly, the text itself has already a kind of rhythm which I can use to give more structure to the music. Third, I can make selections from the text because all the different stanzas are clearly separated. The other text was a very compact whole and I would have to use it entirely for it to make sense.
The fourth reason is also a main difficulty of using this text, which is the fact that I plan to use the original in Old Norse language. This is very appealing since I love the sound of this language, it is very archaic and perfect for the kind of music I want to write. But it is a major difficulty when trying to explain to the musicians how to pronounce the words correctly, since it has lots of very uncommon sounds and the writing system can be unfamiliar (although it uses the Latin alphabet). To solve this, I have thought of recording myself reading the fragments of the poem I want to use, and give this recording to the musicians, so that they can listen to the pronunciation. I also found a video on YouTube where a man chants part of the Völuspá, so I might also include that. Luckily, there are plenty of resources in the internet regarding the pronunciation of Old Norse, like this, which is I must say a bit daunting. Still, I know it will be a major difficulty of the piece, especially for the singer, since he will have to deal with the text the most, but I have faith in him.
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The Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík, Iceland. I know, it's a Christian building,
but still it has to me at least the feeling of Nordic epicness.
Also I think it is very interesting the fact that I am going to collaborate with a male singer that has a soprano voice range. This kind of ambiguity is also perfect for what I want, since the poem is narrated by a Völva, a Seeress, a woman who gets into trance and can speak to the gods, see the future or register can and the past and give advice based on that. I think that having very extreme changes in range from a high soprano voice to a tenor voice can add to this sense of being in a trance, of speaking with many voices.
In terms of instrumentation I am keeping the choices I had for the previous idea, plus some percussion. So the instrumentation in all will be 2 harpsichords, accordion, cello and percussion apart from the singer.
I am very excited about this, I think this idea can have a very ncie result, now I just need to sit down and begin writing, slowly but surely.
I leave you now with a traditional song from Iceland, telling the story of a man that dies because he refused the love of a mermaid to save his soul for Jesus Christ.
I have no idea what this other song is about, but it's really cool. Apparently it's about Siegfried (the one from the Nibelungenlied) portrayed as a dragon slayer.
